To be pissed off with even a discussion about calling 999 in a non emergency.

[Buddhagirl]

There is a serious problem in this country with people calling 999 or going to A&E for medical problems that can be sorted by non emergency services.

It really really annoys me. There should be no debate. The nhs is overstretched, ring nhs direct, call your gp, go to a pharmacy, go to a drop in clinic. If it is serious drive to casualty, if it's life threatening call an ambulance. AIBU to expect people to do this and respect the nhs?

If this is a big problem at both ends of the scale then somewhere or other the information/education/ is not getting through. So the question is how to get that message through more effectively.

C'mon, really, this is a thread about a thread about a person who should be 999 as it is. An elderly man with diabetes who had D&V uncontrolled was losing lucidity and unable to stand on his own. That is an emergency. This man was still in hospital by yesterday and his blood sugar is still unstable. It can take days to stablise such a person and they have to be treated by IV. It was never a 111 case. Such a person can die quickly.

expat that's the difference, though. In your case, that chap needs to be in hospital. It's a scenario I can see happening with my dad, he's diabetic too. As is DD's friend, who has been hospitalised several times after catching illnesses which have interfered with her diabetic routines.

So different to the idiot I know with a sprained ankle.

We really need to be educating people. And getting past the selfishness of some people without making it harder for those who genuinely need help.

A lot of people don't get what A&E is for, even though the clue is in the name. Admittedly it is the first/only port of call for some very vulnerable people who don't have a GP, but otherwise it is for accidents and emergencies. Not a cough that's a few days old, or an ingrowing toenail.

And if you don't need A&E (or perhaps Maternity emergencies which is equivalent), you certainly don't need to call 999 for an ambulance.

I get the impression though that paramedics/EMTs see so many false calls that anything that's even borderline is a welcome chance to do their actual job. And particularly with small children the advice is generally that they'd rather see 100 children unnecessarily than not see the one who turned out to have a life-threatening condition.

The important thing about children is that they are not just small adults. Their physiology and response to injury or illness are different to adults. Children can appear ok, they are compensating, then they can go off very quickly. If an ambulance is called when they are in severe distress it may be too late.

We all hate children jobs, no one wants to go to a very sick of injured child, we really do not want to have to use our skills on children. Usually when a job comes through on our screens we are quite nonchalant about it, even arrests,trauma etc, most of us have seen and dealt with it all. When a bad job with a child comes through it goes very quite in the cab and we get very focused and psyched up to deal with what can be a horrific expereince for everyone. When we get to the job we get in and if we see and hear that the child is crying or the parent misunderstood what has happened there is no one more relieved than us. We always encourage parents to call 999 if they are worried, we are quite happy to called out for children and then not be needed.

Many times the most important intervention that we do at a children job is a bit of TLC and support for the parents who have been very worried. Two of the most common calls are for apnea episodes where the child stops breathing then realises it neeeds oxygen and starts breathing again and febrile convulsions. In a febrile convulsion the childs brain has not developed the means of controlling its temperature, it develops this around 3 years old and it starts convulsing as a means of cooling down. It usually occurs when the child has a infection of some sort. Both of these episodes are absolutley terrifying the first time a parent sees them but not necesarrily life threatening. We give calpol for the convulsion O2 if needed during apnea but most of all take the children in and reassure the parents.

It 's education that's needed. But I can see that while public confidence in the new 111 number is dented, 999 calls will still be made inappropriately.

I've called 999 for my diabetic dad before, which was the right thing. And an OOH doc called an ambulance for me when I called about my DS, who was coughing up blood. (Turned out he'd burst a blood vessel in his throat from all the coughing he had done from the illness he had, IIRC. No hospital req'd and he was soon fine.)

Now, this is about false calls to the police, rather than the ambulance service, but it illustrates the extent to which false calls are causing problems.

beitou, just wanted to say, a little off topic, what a marvelous job you guys do. I have called 999 a number of times - twice for RTCs, twice for DH with acute chest pain (turned out to be enormous gall stones - he keeps them in a jar on his chest of drawers ). Anyway, the paramedics have always been fabulous and, as well as being technically great, have been kind and reassuring. Y'all do a great job (but the guys in the ambulance station near me need to stop hitting the chippie every night - the uniforms are a giveaway ).

Actually, this is the link I wanted to add, but the other is interesting too.

I've been reading this thread chewing my nails down resisting joining so I can post my 2'penneth worth....but I can't. So here's my 1st ever posting. I have worked as a paramedic for 15 years and I think you would all be shocked if you knew what I know. I wish I could take every one of you out with me for a shift so you can see the true state of the emergency side of the NHS as a whole.

I'm not having a go at the individuals who work in it, or the people who don't know what/when to ring 999, but I am trying gently to say that the A and E side of the NHS is imploding. It simply cannot go on as it is.

Too many people are using the emergency NHS treatment inappropriately. On virtually every single shift now A/E is bursting at the seams, ambulance crews are run ragged and people will suffer, and are suffering.

There is no simple one step solution. I know what I would do. If I was in government I would have the guts to say that ambulances aren't free. Whether this is a cost at source or a type of insurance I don't know, but this in my view is the only solution now, the state we are in.

I know I am going to get flamed, and I know the argument that vulnerable people may not ring is a justifiable one, but this is reality. A nominal charge - maybe it can be means tested- would help. Many calls I get are to people who have taken an ambulance to a/e, got fed up waiting, gone home, then rung 999 again.....the record for me is 5x to the same person in 1 night ( Call takers can triage the priority of calls, but believe it or not it is virtually impossible for them not to send an ambulance.)

I would get rid of 111 and ensure calls were taken by someone medically qualified who could accurately assess whether 999 or A/E is necessary, not just follow a flip chart.

And I would encourage all individuals; if you know your first aid skills are a bit ropey, or you know deep down that you don't really know what constitutes an emergency, then book yourself onto one of the many freely available community first aid courses (st johns, red cross, british heart foundation) for your own piece of mind.

Apogies for the long post!

MrsNoodle, I so agree with you. My brother is front line A&E nurse and the stories he tells us make us weep .

The sense of entitlement, selfishness, laziness, stupidity, etc is truly shocking.

It is a desperate situation and many vulnerable people are losing out because of others' behaviour.

Having recently attended an incident where a paramedic was called only to dispense 2 paracetamol I'm rather inclined to agree with the OP.

However, if anyone really feels that calling an ambulance is necessary but is worried about wasting resources, they should always err on the side of caution. Only medical experts are experts, and any room for doubt should be taken seriously. Far better to get a bollocking for wasting time than to be arranging a funeral or dealing with life-altering injuries because you didn't want to bother anyone.

No flaming from me mrsnoodle

It's not unreasonable to think that only people with serious injuries / health problems should take an ambulance, and some people really do take the piss - but there is a big grey area between "life-threatening" and "definitely not serious enough to need an ambulance" that can be hard for non-medical people to get right.

There's plenty of examples of that in the thread above, and I think that if people really are worried that someone is seriously ill / injured and in need of immediate medical attention, then erring on the side of caution and calling an ambulance is justified.

(and obviously, there's non-life-threatening conditions, such as broken legs or hips, where ambulances will be needed because the patient can't be transferred to hospital otherwise)

Maybe better education would help - making people more aware of counts as an emergency and should be in an ambulance, and also making people aware that arriving in an ambulance doesn't equal a ticket to the front of the A&E queue. Maybe some people would be less likely to call an ambulance if they knew they'd still have to wait 4 hours to get their ingrown toenail (or something equally trivial) seen once they arrived at A&E.

I agree with Mrs Noodle, and after waiting from 10pm to around 3am with a very very sick DD2 (they admitted her for 3 days I presume that means they thought it was serious) while a load a timewasters clogged up the system I have very little sympathy with people not understanding what is and isn't appropriate for A&E.

Was talking to a paramedic the other day who was shaking his head in disbelief at the chest pain patient who had asked the ambulance to stop so he could get some fags on the way to hospital.

You cant always tell from looking what is and isn't serious though - I was sat in A&E a year ago, looking normal, reading a magazine and able to walk through to the treatment area on my own with no support. In actual fact I hadn't peed in 18 hours, I was in acute urine retention and ended up spending two nights on the urology ward with a catheter.. To all in the waiting room I probably looked like I was wasting time but I was quite ill, think that's not unusual. In my case I still had to wait a good while before being sorted, it was 4pm when I went to hospital and 8pm before I was treated, not sure why - they always have a lot of trauma victims at local hospital though, it's the main centre I think for the whole of northern Scotland and Shetland, so that probably made a difference.

Shadow, totally agree re queue jumping. I think a lot of people assume they will be seen first if they arrive in an ambulance .