To think a 101 year old should not wait on the floor for an ambulance for 2 hours

[ScottishG]

My lovely grandfather, aged 101 had a fall in the early hours of this morning. He has a care alarm which he pressed. My parents, who usually help him out we're away, so a neighbour was contacted by the careline. She went to his house and found him on the floor, cold and a bit confused but otherwise seemingly ok. Careline caller advised that grandfather should be kept still on the floor and neighbour should not attempt to get him up. Careline called for an ambulance. TWO HOURS later paramedics arrived. He was given a thorough check, helped up and settled back into bed. Paramedics are very apologetic about the wait.
I am not in any way complaining about the kind, professional paramedics who helped him.
AIBU though to think a 101 year old on the floor should not be such a low priority that he has to wait for 2 hours?

But even for an emergency, they can't send an ambulance until one is available. The resources just aren't there, and there will be a lot of other people in similarly urgent circumstances. They're not magicians.

It's not the dispatcher's fault that the NHS and ambulance services have been subjected to a decade of cuts.

I watched the programme in a few months a go about paramedics in the midlands. There just isn’t enough anymore. Also they are now having to deal with stabbing a and shootings.

With the a&e being backed up I can see why. Trying to get a drs appointment is terrible. My son needs to see a dr for something (not urgent) and I called on the 4th. A nurse called me back to see if he actually needed an appointment and had booked him in for the 28th. When I called the next day to rearrange as my son can’t make it I was told it would be the 17th of October!! I need a smear test and have been trying to book one for 3 months. I’m always being told there is no appointments left and to try again next month. Apparently it’s the same at the other drs in our village. I would certainly never go to a&e if it wasn’t an accident and emergency but I can kind of see why people do.

If people don’t like it they should stop voting Tory.
A lot of people have voted Tory over the last few years, the time it’s taken to fuck up the NHS and social services.
I bet a lot of those people are complaining now.
They don’t want to pay their taxes for benefits and services for other people but as soon as they need a service, or someone they love needs it, and can’t get it, they are up in arms.
Well this is what happens when so many people don’t think or care about the greater good when they vote.

Niece aged 4 having an epileptic seizure. She was supposed to be flagged as high priority due to ending up on life support 3 months earlier due to a rare and life threatening reaction to recovery meds. Her emergency meds at that time could only be administered by the paediatric dr at the local A and E.

Ambulance took 50 minutes to arrive. By the time they had her in the ambulance she had been having a seizure for 60 minutes and at risk from dying or severe brain injury. Paramedics had to administer the emergency meds she reacted to last time, she went into respiratory arrest, was resuscitated 3 times in the next half an hour, placed in a coma and was on life support for 48 hours. She very nearly died.

It was horrific. This is what happens when services are cut to the bone.

And it's tragic your grandad had to wait so long but although it's an awful thing to happen it's not an emergency. If it had been my relative and they weren't in pain I would have got them up off the floor. Obviously if you think they have hurt themselves you can't but if they are lucid, can tell me nothing hurts and I had some help I would be getting them up and into bed with a cuppa. I don't think it would even cross my mind to cal 101.