Ambulance - Attend or not attend????

[Dawn19]

My son was knocked off his bike recently (not by a motor vehicle I may add) and was knocked unconscious and due to his asthma had difficulty breathing, his friends whom he was with at the time phoned for an ambulance whilst another of them ran to our house luckily only 5 mins away to inform us. We waited for over an hour and half and still no ambulance arrived, in the end I phoned and cancelled it and took him myself in the car as he regained consciousness by this time and was experiencing dizziness and nausea, where we had a lovely 3 hour wait in A & E. Is it just me or should the ambulance have arrived before 1 & half hours?

My brother's a 999 call dispatcher. The amount of timewasting is outrageous. And many callers even for legitimate reasons are shocked or confused and don't give accurate information about the situation - that's why they have the questions.

I'm lucky to live very near a hospital and when there are really needed the ambulances get there in amazing time. I was sitting at the front of a bus waiting at a busy junction a couple of weeks ago and there right in front of us a cyclist got knocked off her bike and was lying right there in the middle of the traffic the ambulance was there in less than 3 minutes, and as we were stuck at the junction I saw everything - the paramedics were absolutely amazing, they were doing their job so calmly in the middle of a mini-roundabout and fielding traffic at the same time. The poor girl was unconscious and they managed to get her into the ambulance, neck and back restraints and lifting her between the two of them, and clear the junction in less than 10 minutes.

I've thought a lot since about that and wondered if she was okay in the end and about how fab the paramedics were. Now that is the kind of situation that can't wait at all, and no doubt lots of less urgent calls got put back in the queue as a result.

(There were a fair few people on the bus complaining that they were going to be late though, you really wonder about some people )

I haven't read the whole thread but I had the exact thing happen to me 20 yrs ago and the ambulance attended within 10 mins, I'm afraid it's the norm now to wait hours hope your little one is ok

Concrete so even tho you could refuse to take poorly-knee person you wouldn't because you'd rather stand around in A&E because you can. Even if you're not 'arse-covering'?

I did a twelve hour shift yesterday on a rapid response car, I did 9 jobs, amongst those were mild lower back pain, able to mobilise hadn't taken pain relief prescribed for his back condition, a drunk whose family were fed up of her, a man in his 30's who had a small cut on his forehead, happened whilst gardening, no loss of consciousness, had stopped bleeding,someone who had taken MCAT and now felt a bit 'funny', healthy 22 year old who had D&V for three hours. This is representative of a normal day shift and I was the only car on in a large and very busy town.

All these came through as red calls because of what the caller had said, it doesn't matter that this was not the reality of the situation. Meanwhile the lady whose husband was having a stroke, minimises what is happening so ends up waiting longer and is full of apologies for bothering me.

I appreciate that it isn't always advisable to drive a casualty to hospital, but in this case I can't understand why an ambulance was called at all, as the child was totally moveable, and the parent had a car in the drive!

Exactly longlost!

so even tho you could refuse to take poorly-knee person you wouldn't because you'd rather stand around in A&E because you can. Even if you're not 'arse-covering'?

Err, No, I wouldn't! There are other things you can do - refer to walk-in centres etc. What I said were that some would. A lot of paras in my trust were old timers, trained through the system and very jaded. Moral is (justifiably) exceptionally low and it seemed a lot of people have just given up.

It really annoys me when the OP posts and does a runner! Come back OP and answer the questions people have put to you!

I only have one experience of calling an ambulance. My nan, who was in a home at the time, was suffering breathing difficulties and chest pain. The home called an ambulance and she was given a low category. Two hours later and they hadn't arrived despite repeated calls to say that they, and my dad, believed she was deteriorating. She died of a massive heart attack shortly after arriving at hospital.

I am a huge supporter of our NHS. I know it's overstretched and there are a lot of time wasters. My nan was unfortunate that she got I'll on a Friday night, when no doubt hospitals and ambulance crews were dealing with alcohol related injuries. I can't hand on heart blame the NHS or ambulance trust for what happened because I know there were exacerbating factors and her condition was probably beyond intervention anyway. But it would definitely make me consider taking my ds to hospital in the car rather than be at the mercy of a prioritisation system. We live 5 mins from a hospital. I'd rather get him there so that if he deteriorates he's already in the right place.

Liwwybettykins i'd had a large fall, lost conscious and was throwing up ( was a child)yet my parents and i were kept waiting in a&e for a few hours. My mom was a nervous wreck after
They are overstretched though.
Although i was shocked by the event by my mothers, when i've had to call for one before, they haven't taken too long to arrive.