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.

Obviously an asthmatic would need an ambulance and I understand silent attacks. I'm 100% not referring to that. I'm referring to having a sore foot for 3.5 weeks or a sore throats for 2hrs or an otherwise healthy adult that's vomited once or a child with a pea stuck up their nose

It's scary how even some professionals seem so uneducated on these things.

I remember an a and e dr telling a nurse she must have done DS sats wrong as there was no way they could be 76. Thankfully the nurse grabbed a passing consultant who was amazing and 2 weeks later DS was discharged from hospital!

Yep similar happened to me. Nurse happened to be passing when a Junior Doc was in the middle of discharging me. Thank the Lord she had the balls to challenge him!

I also know of a friend who's DH was sent to hospital via bus with sats of 86. They were amazed at how he was stood upright. 4 weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.

This thread nearly scuppered me, I found myself in a situation today where I couldn't physically drive myself further to hospital (allergy/asthma related). I stopped and calmed an ambulance, I was "semi" under control by the time the paramedic arrived. Was seen quickly in hospital even though my vitals were fine then. I mentioned to the registrar how stupid I felt that I'd wasted so much time when there were more needy folk. He gave me the BIGGEST bollocking and told me when it came to airway thatvpkkitics didn't come into it. And to not hesitate in doing it again. I walked back to my car, but paramedic obviously thought (as did Dr) that I needed being seen. But you'd have looked at me yet again and thought -time waster 😢

Do you work for Atos ? If not there are plenty of vacancies for "assesors" who just sum up strangers medical conditions on general observations. Or even try the DWP who just ignore medical evidence & assume everyone is well.

My poor dad had a fall.
. He had a diabetic leg and bad balance so he was prone to falling over.
He waited 3 hours for Ambulance. Now I know why.

ROFL @pixiepoopoo

I once sat for 6 hours in agony with a dislocated knee whilst the only Dr in A & E dealt with a pillock who had fainted and hit his head. Turned out he was rat-arsed because he had drunk to excess at a wedding on an empty stomach. Another time I had to wait several hours but didn't mind this time because they were dealing with a young child who had been in a car accident.

Yes there are time wasters, but who are we to judge. People may have a simple illness but do they really know? Better I be safe than sorry! Also you are being very unreasonable to assume everyone can drive. Also ambulances DO NOT take priority in a&e. It is not first come first serve, the severity of the illness takes prioirity. Yes your daughter had an ear infection which is horrible but can also be seen at GP, and most of the time no medication will help your child, apart from a pain killer. We all get frustrated at a&e because our children will always be priority to us, but not the paramedics or paediatricians. YABU

These threads do always make me question the ethics of the staff who are obviously telling other patients about people they have treated. Otherwise how would people know so much about others who are in the department and their conditions?

I think the whole 111 decision pathway on who needs treatment and when and how to get there...has become a national farce.
In days gone by, ambulances were despatched for those who really needed it. Nowadays, you are at the mercy of a computerised algorithm, that would not be amiss on Little Britain.
I suffered an issue last year, following a botched operation. We rang 111 to be told we needed to go to a&her, which given I had been in agony and had been unable to empty my bladder for 24 hours, already kind of knew! When we got there, I was immediately triaged to majors, and my kidneys had started to malfunction. As we were arriving, we saw two teenagers with hand injuries (no blood) and an abusive drunk, all deposited in the back of an ambulance!
On top of this, our daughter recently suffered a fall, and having lost consciousness, an ambulance was called by her school. They went through all the rigmarole of questions, and then declared they would not be sending an ambulance, as it was a minor injury only, and we could take her ourself!
It took me two hours to physically get her to the unit, as she could not stand without passing out and could not find a parking space, and when we arrived (had to leave her in car alone and try find a chair in the hospital) she was immediately triaged as an emergency, and given morphine. She had suffered a major double fracture, which was close to a major artery, and was compromising vital nerves. She was only 7, and they treated her like this. I am so disgusted and appalled with this system, particularly when my teenage daughter comes back from a party, to tell me one of the girls who regularly gets drunk and goes to a&he, was carted off vomiting in an ambulance! It totally beggars belief. And yes I would rather pay direct for a decent service, than pay indirect truck loads of tax, towards a service that is no longer fit for purpose.

a few years ago my daughter was running home and looked back to see where i was and ran smack bang into a wheelie bin that had been left out on the pavement she banged the side of her head, cut her lips and inside of mouth and dislodged 3 teeth and was bleeding badly

i phoned A&E who said to bring her in ( i had to wait till bleeding had stopped a bit .. i had to go up on a bus which took over 1 hr as i tried to get a lift which would have taken 20mins my brother's wife said he was at his dinner )

i had to wait a further two hrs my daughter with no painkiller offered till my daughter had been seen only for them to say they couldnt do anything as their was no dental surgeon at that time of night and sent us home with a letter to give to my dentist the next morning who was horrified at her treatment as he had to end up taking two of the teeth out ..Looking back i should have asked for an ambulance when i read about what other parents / adults call them out for

like my SIL who ccalled an ambulance without asking anyone when she thought her daughters bowels were comming out when she only had a pile in her bottom ( she was at her parents house at the time

The 111 service has contributed hugely to this misuse of our emergency services. I need to call for advice often, as part of my job, and get so fustrated when, the , inevitably young call handler with their list of questions, calls an ambulance for my client. This recently happened when I needed a GP or District Nurse to administer a painkilling injection at 3am to someone at the end of their life. All the equipment and drugs were here in a GP pack, we just needed someone to administer it. Fifteen minutes before my client passed away, a rapid response unit and an ambulance arrived, having been sent by the 111 service to give an injection!

It actually made me cry with fustration.

YANBU services are massively stretched and some people definitely take the piss.

We live in a "cover your arse" society. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

There's even a medical shorthand for drunks who are brought to A and E which goes on their notes. PAFO - pissed and fell over.

I had a motorbike crash a few years back and was put on a spinal board by a paramedic. He called for a proper ambulance to take me to hospital (paramedic was in a car).

I was very lucid, laughing and joking with the ambulance guys who by the end of the journey thought the paramedic had been too cautious putting me on a spinal board- turns out I had a fractured sternum and my wrist was fractured in three places. My heart was also bruised in relation to the sternum fracture. I didn't feel in that much pain at the time, but it could have been shock, adrenaline etc etc.

You can't tell just by looking at someone whether they are seriously ill or injured.

You're right Shark..you can't tell by looking at someone how bad their injuries might be, but you can often tell a darn sight more than the young computer script plebs sitting on the end of a phone!

One week I presented to a&e four times while I was pregnant. Once in an ambulance, the other 3 times in went in a taxi. I was immediately rushed into resus each time, after being seen in the initial bit before being admitted. Each time i was rushed straight down on a stretcher in front of everybody that was waiting, got dirty looks and muttered comments as I looked fine. However each time my heart beat was over 200 beats per minute and required drugs to slow it down. The point being, don't judge from what you think you see.

Sirzy cubicles are flimsy and you can hear everything. Staff didn't need to tell me.

mumto - plebs? Really
I'm 33 with a degree. I might be "sat on the end of a phone" but I hear a baby's first breath, peoples last breaths, the Cumbria shootings, the Manchester attack, people screaming for their lives, husbands and wives last words to each other, suicidal people, a child that isn't breathing. You have NO idea what we do and what we deal with. The average span of the job is 7 years before people burn out. You hear everything and see nothing, and that often needs specialist counselling. It's also a internationally recognised qualification we hold

Ollivander84 If I could like a mumsnet comment it would be yours 👍🏻

I wish I knew how to change my name on here.

I used to work in ED. I remember one Was, I was given the task of triaging the queue of ambulances to bring the sicker patients in first. A man called an ambulance (and they brought him in...) With a cut. To his toe. That he'd had for 3 days. (And no previous history of neuropathy or diabetes or anything that would need a&e.) I sent him to minors, and he left to go home 40 minutes later.
Without being seen.