To think some people waste the ambulance service time

[hannah1992]

So last night I drove my dd who's 19 months to the out of hours doctor which is located at our hospital. You have to wait at a&e reception and speak to reception etc. Anyway three ambulances came in and obviously they get first priority in booking people in. We had been waiting in line for 25 minutes while these ambulances were sorted and my dd was screaming the whole time (she has an ear infection). In the three ambulances was a man that was sent to the gp part so didn't even need a hospital doctor. Another had a teenage boy and his mum. He had a bandage around his hand/wrist BUT his dad had followed the ambulance in the car. He was walking around didn't seem to be in very much pain aibu in the fact that his dad had drove behind the ambulance, why couldn't he have just drove him in the car?

I was just stood there thinking the ambulance certainly in my area (not sure about others) are very stretched and people should stop calling ambulances when a) they can go to hospital in the car ie: it's not a life threatening emergency and let the ambulance service deal with people who are seriously ill. I just kept thinking while they have been dealing with someone who needed a gp rather than the hospital and someone who's parents could have drove him to hospital somebody could have been dying of a heart attack.

Yes people misuse services however not enough information to know if that was the case in either of your examples

YANBU. It's seems to be seen as a taxi service by some. Have seen some ambulance staff working very hard not to take people who clearly didn't need to go or need an ambulance.

One of the major problems locally is the 3-4 hours the ambulance can be sat out side a&e in a que.

I'm sure some people do waste the ambulance service time. I'm sure that happens a lot.

But YABU for thinking you can sit there and diagnose people by looking and decide that is what they are doing. You can't possibly tell how much pain there is or what have befallen these people, and it's none of your business to try. It's unreasonable to sit in judgement and second guess people's medical problems.

Yes, people waste ambulance time for definite.

However, YABU to think you can diagnose people at a glance and that your precious DD's ear infection takes priority over everyone else.

Some people do. Someone I used to be friends with was once very proud of herself when after a few too many drinks she pissed herself in a restaurant so she faked having a fit to get an ambulance. This way she didn't have to walk out in a pissy dress 'and we didn't have to pay for the dinner either'. When I asked if she thought whoever would have been next in line would be happy to wait in pain longer because of her humiliation being saved she looked baffled and said 'these people want to help, that's why they work in health care. It gave them something to do'. You can't reason with the combination of selfish and stupid.

You are being mostly U.
Some people waste NHS resources, sure. But you can't diagnose these things at a glance.
The bandage/wrist injury in that case may not even be relevant, it could've been a different issue totally that he was there for.
Perhaps he was threatening to harm himself for example?

Ambulances do not get priority when booking in, it's a myth. You'll wait just as long coming via ambulance if your condition is not serious!

Other than that YANBU

YANBU- however I rang 111 to book an after hours gp appointment and rather then getting a call back we got an ambulance sent it wasn't an issue (I thought) Warranted that but apparently they did

People do misuse the ambulance service. But as others have said you can't possibly judge those particular scenarios, no one knows the history / circumstances. I rang 111 a month or so ago because I was having bad back pain and felt like I was unable to get any relief from normal painkillers and was convinced I'd just pulled a muscle and needed some stronger painkillers from the out of hours doctor. Before I could say no they were sending an ambulance and I was rushed to hospital where they diagnosed a severe asthma attack (haven't had asthma since I was a child). I was kept in and had many different drugs and was later discharged with steroids, asthma inhalers and painkillers- with an urgent referral to asthma nurse. If I had come to a n e myself I would have been the person in front of you saying I had terrible back pain and everyone would be saying what a waste of resources etc....!

I'm sure some people do. I think some of the problem is that some 111 operators are very cautious and send ambulances out when not needed.

I called 111 once when my baby ds was having breathing difficulties. He'd very recently been diagnosed with asthma but had an attack where his breathing difficulties seemed slightly different to previous ones. I called 111 to see if they thought it sounded like his asthma or something else, not knowing whether to wait and see gp next day or go to ooh. I was still on the phone when 3 ambulances appeared. 111 operator had decided it sounded like ds was choking (he very clearly wasn't) and ambulance insisted on taking us to a and e. It was all very embarrassing, we waited 4 hours then I asked if I could just see gp in the morning. Then yes said I migh as well as he was clearly fine and there was no way we'd be seen that night.

Paramedics don't automatically bring everyone to hospital, they make a decision on the job. The cases you saw were people who the paramedics decided needed to go to hospital, it's not for you to judge how they should have travelled there.
The real issue here is why the out of hours GP is using the same reception as the ambulance cases. Our out of hours is at the hospital but with its own waiting area.

Last week a bottle fell out my fridge and smashed, cutting my foot. It cut a vein and my blood doesn't clot quick due to a medical condition and I also fainted. My partner called an ambulance. I felt I was wasting time but the paramedic reassured me we did the right thing. You would have judged me with a bandage on my foot in the waiting room.

Yabu for taking an ear infection to a&e. You should have used an out of hours gp service.
I don't think ambulances are processed first, they are triaged the same as walk ins. YABU on this point also.

The Op makes it very clear she was there to use the OOH GP which is based in the same department as A and E

How can you judge because someone drove behind the ambulance. I do that when dd is rushed in, if they can get her breathing relatively normally in the ambulance they don't blue light her. If they do I'm still only a couple of minutes later. Oh, and when her twin went in last I followed her in to. She walked out of the ambulance, laughing and joking, she was drunk. She'd also taken 40 paracetamol and a handful of night nurse too. You'd have thought she was wasting time to look at her. Me; I'm eternally grateful that she's still alive.

I do think some people do use ambulances necessarily but you can't judge from how people look etc.

My son had a bad stomach bug when he was 18 months and I called 111 for advice as it was a Sunday - because he was under 2 and was showing a couple of symptoms of sepsis (listless, not urinating) they sent an ambulance. I could have driven him to A&E myself but they were insistent.

My sister is a paramedic, I can confirm A LOT miss use their services

Well you can charge for ambulance use. They do in NZ too. FIL paid NZ $75 for the privilege 3 years ago for a heart attack. (That's £43). That will stop most of the time waster. And charging for the A&E trip too will help. When it's free people always take the piss.

My DS had a small seizure a couple of weeks ago. He was fine within minutes. I'd called 111 for advice and they sent an ambulance (small child, first seizure, it's protocol). They then said we needed hosp to get him fully checked. I did drive him myself but if I hadn't have had a car we would have gone in the ambulance and you would have seen a fully conscious, happy, young boy with apparently nothing wrong with him skip off the ambulance. Don't judge.

Nb DS fully checked and is fine.

A few weeks ago my 2yo DS swallowed some bath water. I was concerned he might have inhaled it so called 111 for advice. I told them after coughing and spluttering he seems perfectly fine and I expected them to tell me to take him up to our nearest walk in to be checked out.... they blue lighted and ambulance to us. I did tell them I was able to drive but since there was nobody to sit in the back with DS, they insisted on an ambulance. He was totally fine and I felt pretty silly tbh!

Problem is the free at point of use. They can pay more for our GPs too because it's privatised. We used to go to a private A&E for minor problems that was linked to our insurance company.

This was on the news last year.
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/24/new-zealand-gp-who-offered-400000-job-flooded-by-hundreds-of-trash-applicants
It's £230k using today's exchange rate.

I have a friend who is a paramedic. She says about 1/3 of her calls do not need an ambulance.

"three ambulances came in and obviously they get first priority in booking people in"

Not b/c they arrived by ambulance. Maybe they had greater medical need and already had passed a triage process, but arrival by ambulance means you already have medical people in attendance so you are safe to wait outside for longer compared to people who haven't had any triage. Arriving by ambulance creates net delay for the average patient it's faster to take self to A&E. At least that happens in my area (famously).

The greatest abuse of ambulance services tends to be at the point of calling for one, not those who get ferried to hospital.

i do agree with you but my dad needed an ambulance just over a week ago, he collapsed twice and had to get checked out it turns out he has a heart condition but my dad managed to walk in to the hospital from the ambulance but would have looked drunk to everyone else which he wasnt and he was very confused didnt know where he was, we also drove behind the ambulance too. at first it was thought my dad had a mini stroke, nobody would have realised that and assumed my dad was a drunk as people are too quick to judge!

what im trying to say is the people you saw might not have looked bad, they may have an injury to there head or somewhere thats not visible, that might need checked.

the ones that bother me is the people who are actually drunk and take the piss out the nhs, also the ones that end up getting taken in with the police to get checked over as they get priority over everyone even the ambulances!

I used to work in A&E. Some of the things people called an ambulance for were shocking; a broken finger nail and blisters where a shoe had rubbed being a couple of ludicrous examples. At the time (mid 90s), it used to cost £400 for every patient the ambulance service attended and brought in to hospital. I dread to think what it costs now.