What, in your opinion, deserves an ambulance call out?

[Drizzledrozzle]

Inspired by another thread, what level of pain / injury / personal circumstances deserves an ambulance call out?

In my own recent experience I'm aware of my gran who calls an ambulance most days because she's confused and gets some shortness of breath.
IMO she should not be calling an ambulance, but she's alone and frightened and clearly calls them as a safety mechanism. She also calls police, fire and the gas board most days, as well as my dad x30 a day and myself once or twice. She's shortly being moved into residential care which will be a great relief to her local emergency services. However if she didn't have family / resources to pay for the care what is the answer?

My partner had a virus and while walking across the kitchen he suddenly collapsed. He didn't lose consciousness but was unable to get up, and I had two small children I was looking after so couldn't give him much care or attention or time, so I called 999. I think the shock of him collapsing made me unable to think straight.
They triaged him by phone, told him to get himself to a sofa as soon as he could, and they'd drop by when they had a moment but they wouldn't consider him a priority.
He ended up being taken in that night when they arrived with suspected meningitis. Thankfully he didn't have it and recovered soon after

When pregnant with DC1 I had a single drop of blood appear and again I freaked out and called 999. They kindly told me I didn't need an ambulance and to keep an eye, stay comfortable and get to an EPU in the morning. All was luckily fine.
I very clearly shouldn't have called 999, but no ambulance came and I only wasted 5 mins of phone time.

I don't want a critique of all my experiences, I'm sure it would be searing! But given some posters seem to think you need to be actually in cardiac arrest before you can even consider calling 999, where is your line?

I'd also not get a taxi again if I thought I had another pulmonary embolism. I'd call an ambulance as they can treat with anti-coagulants immediately.

Walking into a busy A&E with a queue just to speak to reception was a very grim experience. The triage nurse is gatekeeped by Reception at my hospital. It's certainly not like Casualty where Charlie and Duffy run out with wheelchairs the minute someone sets foot in the place.

I was lucky it was Thursday morning, not Friday night, or I'd have been in serious trouble.

For curiosity I've just called my local taxi firm for a price. It's £18 from my house to my local (not really local because it's two towns away) hospital. She also asked if it was an emergency 'because can't help and you should call an ambulance' so it looks like taxis may not always be the answer.

DH was playing rugby and hurt his arm. Also playin was a GP who said he needed an ambulance. I wouldn't have thought of it because he was only complaining of a hurt finger.But paramedics said there was no blood supply to it and they needed to give DH gas and air and reset it and also he was going into shock.
I think it is very difficultfor a lay person to judge.

Also, I run a business doing sport wichildtren and teens and I would call an ambulance much more readily than as a private person .It is up to emergency services triage to make the decision not me.

QuestionableMouse that's a very salient point. Our taxi here mostly won't take people who are bleeding, vomiting, incontinent, passing out/fainting, fitting, in labour, or who 'look like they need an ambulance'.

taxis plural. This isn't Albert Square, honest.

Sometimes it can seem quicker to take someone to hospital yourself or to take a taxi but that's not the right thing to do and could be really dangerous.

Personal example - my father had a stroke a few years ago and my mum drove him to hospital instead of calling an ambulance (he was still walking but had correctly self diagnosed from his symptoms). I think it was partly the shock, plus he's not a man who like's a fuss of any kind. She ended up driving him to a hospital which didn't even have an A&E department so then had to go to another one which did - the stuff of sit-coms.. He got the medical assistance he needed and thankfully was okay bar some minor physical disability, but that's down to pure luck. And if she'd called an ambulance they would actually have taken him to a different hospital with a specialist stroke centre so who knows if that might have had an even better outcome.

In London and other big cities a reason to be really wary of suggesting someone takes a taxi in an emergency is that there are specialist centres for trauma/heart attacks/strokes etc - an ambulance will take you to the best place for your suspected condition whereas you won't know where that is. They can also deliver care en-route. For a suspected a heart attack or stroke I'd ALWAYS dial 999.

However if she didn't have family / resources to pay for the care what is the answer?

People without family or money are still cared for in nursing/care homes when they need it. I'm guessing if she was in the situation above the council would have seen how her housing condition wasn't working as well.

Did you see that programme about time wasters calling 999. It's not people who aren't sure what to do when presented with a medical situation that could be life threatening or cause long term disability. It's people complaining about the price of milk or wondering why their hair isn't growing as fast as their friends!

I’ve taken a taxi to A&E before (with a gall bladder attack that just got worse and worse and worse). I was very obviously in agony and thankfully the taxi firm were fine with it, although the driver kept trying to helpful distract me by making small talk about holidays. That firm will also take women in labour - I checked pre DD1 as it was my only way to hospital out of public transport hours.

Suppose I can’t blame some taxi drivers for not wanting to take people who are bleeding or labouring or obviously in need of immediate medical attention, but it does make life quite difficult for those without a helpful friend or partner with a car.

I would not be able to make that decision by myself.

But you might have to! When Ds burnt his leg, I was here with the 3 kids and dh at work, I had to assess the best course of action. What a bunch of randoms on the Internet consider to be appropriate or deserving didn't enter my mind.

I really hope if ever you need to some sense kicks in quickly!

My GP practice called a taxi for me when I fainted during pregnancy and they wanted me to go to the hospital for a scan. The taxi firm were fine - but perhaps because a GP had decided it was safe.

Serious blood loss, loss of consciousness for more than a moment or two, high temperature/rash/vomiting in a child, obvious signs of infection (swelling & red lines), signs of coronary episode (grey, sweating, breathless, chest pain etc), exposed fracture, large joint dislocation.

I find typing nhs “condition” into google helps restore calm for lesser things. Then a trip to OOO doctor if I’m still not happy.

DDIJ then you need to ensure you're never left alone with anyone 😒 and you probably need to avoid mn if you take these threads so seriously.

I think DDIJ is just taking aim at the penchant for posters on Mumsnet to crow about how they crawled for 5 hours to A&E through deep snow with a two broken legs to save the NHS some cash.

I got a taxi to the hospital when I was in labour. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't take me.

If they hadn't however I'd have needed to phone an ambulance to take me. Which obviously I'd rather not do.

What time of day/night did you take the taxi, GrandTW?

It was 5.30pm.

I think the taxi driver might have figured out why I was going to hospital at 1am. Being obvious pg, they might have refused me the journey.

drizledrozle what happened to the original thread?
It's fallen off my watched threads

I was obviously pregnant as well but wasn't making any noise during contractions etc. It took an hour to get to the hospital as he went the long way and then DD arrived 4 hours later. So I might've had her at home if I'd had to wait on an ambulance.

The only time I considered calling one was when DS fell and hit his head and I couldn't get the bleeding to stop. It was horrendous - every time I took my hand away blood would spray out. I didn't see how we could keep pressure on it while still trying to get to the car and to A&E. Thank god, it did slow down eventually and the cut itself wasn't very big but it was a scary few minutes....

I think people calling for good reason but being wrong is very different to people calling because they have a headache or have run out of pain meds.