How long would you HOPE it would take for 999 ambulance call takers to answer the phone?

[nevereveragainneverever]

For many years I’ve had a recurring nightmare where something bad happens in the dream and I need to call an ambulance - but in my nightmare I get put on hold for ages while waiting for the ambulance service to pick up the phone.

Last night my nightmare came true.

I had to call 999 at 4.30am after getting some stern advice from my designated medical helpline to do so.

The 999 person asks which service I require. “Ambulance”, says I.

She tried to put me through but then said they were very busy ....and I was being placed on hold for the next available operator.

Now here's the thing; if you had a loved one who was seriously ill or injured / having a cardiac arrest / a child who was choking / not breathing etc - how long do you think you would reasonably have to be on hold to get the ambulance service to actually take your call so you could tell them about it?

I honestly thought it would be 20-30 seconds. After all they had no idea what I was calling about and whether someone was in grave danger.

Well….it was SIX AND A HALF MINUTES!!!!! 😩😠😲. On hold!!!! Before they even picked up the phone to ask if the patient was breathing!!

I am still so shocked by this. I’m NOT blaming them - that's not the point of this thread: they’re just so busy, I think understaffed by Covid and other issues and underfunding .

The 999 ambulance call handler took note of my symptoms and said it was a priority case due to chest pain, issues breathing, worrying oxygen sats, other symptoms.. and my underlying serious medical condition (cancer patient on chemotherapy, subsequently admitted to hospital).

The ambulance then took 2.5 hours to arrive!! On a priority call!

Again, I’m NOT blaming them; they had been delayed because they were flagged down in the road when en route to me by desperate parents whose child was sick…and whose own ambulance was delayed. It transpired that the ambulance they should have got had been commandeered by an aggressive, drunk 25 year old man who was demanding a trip to hospital by ambulance for his injured fist - that he got by punching a wall.

You couldn’t make it up! The crew did the right thing in stopping for the child in my view and again I'm not blaming the crew (who were fabulous) and who explained they have only had a total of ten minutes at base - in the last six months! The rest of the time it’s call out after call out - and he said it’s so often time wasters.

I despair. And thought you would like to know. I don't know what the solution is, but wanted to share my experience.

Rant over. Thank you for listening.

DH passed out cold on the hall floor a couple of months ago. He's got a newly diagnosed heart condition, and had just had his medication changed ........took 90 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. I had to phone back twice as he was chalk white, not making any sense, covered in sweat and shaking. I would have got him in the car and driven him to A & E myself if I'd had the strength to lift a 6ft tall 14 stone man off the floor!

Thankfully it was just a reaction to his medication and not a cardiac episode but it was very sobering to know that help isn't instantly accessible ...................

I've called an ambulance once and by the time it got there my family member was dead. I don't think people who can wait over 2 hours for an ambulance need one. They should get a taxi and then life or death emergencies would be attended to in a more timely manner.

Its normally instant but i work for another of the emergency services and we havent been able to get through to ambulance in less than 20/30 mins on our direct line and 10 minutes on a 999, if you were in cardiac arrest, youd be dead in that time. Saying that, we've been under massive demand and had 999 calls queuing for almost 5 minutes and non emergency calls for 2 plus hours!

Yes DP and I did it once after we found a man lying at the side of a road, semi conscious with a serious wound. We were about to call ambulance when i spotted one coming towards us. Paramedics were brilliant. We never did find out how the man came to ne there.

Named changed as this would potentially be outing. I remember when this happened to my family. My daughter was having a prolonged seizure and it was ten minutes before 999 took the call. Didn’t even get triaged, 999 was actually busy.

The ambulance took 45 mims to arrive, my daughter was seizing for 40 of those minutes on the floor.

This really scares me as a mum of a child with severe allergy. I wonder how many people actually just die because they can’t get through?

I had to ring 999 for a child in need on our street the other day - domestic thing, lots of shouting, child screaming etc - handler asked what service I wanted, I said police and I had to wait 5 mins for them to answer the call after that!

Sobering indeed. A couple of weeks back I experienced this first hand too. It was a really frightening lesson. I get really stressed every time I think about it, in fact.
Really traumatic.

I think I always thought it would be instant! Sobering to realise help might not be there if needed.

I just can't believe that there isn't some huge sanction for timewasters, like a grand fine or something.

I just don’t understand how they can’t filter complete time-wasters out a bit more? However I understand how many things get mistaken for emergencies, especially when it’s children involved. I’ve been guilty of an unnecessary a&e visit recently when Dc appeared really very unwell, only to spring back into action in the waiting room. It’s so embarrassing but they were so nice about it.

There really should be a fine for time-wasters. I also think that everyone should be encouraged to do first-aid courses so they know what to do in an emergency such as choking, CPR, heart attack etc

It is scary when is an emergency, unfortunately they are overwhelmed.

Ambulance crews are the new social services.

My cousin is a senior paramedic he said they have regulars who call a lot with severe chest pain etc once there, patient is assessed usually tea is made, no need for hospital, an hour has passed same caller the next week same situation, the time they refuse the patient will die they'll be responsible.

Alcohol fuelled violence has a huge impact on services too.

Then finally hospital queues trying to admit the patient behind 5 ambulances.

That is so scary!
I thought they answer almost immediately and if it’s an emergency dispatch a normal size ambulance straight away but if they are too busy/far away they send a car ambulance or doctor. But I thought someone would come within 20mins.

This happened to me last week. Waited 3 and a half minutes to get through to the ambulance while my friend's baby was convulsing and turning blue. Longest 3.5 minutes of my life.

Luckily the ambulance arrived swiftly and baby is fine now.

Must be due to budget cuts. It's awful.

I just can't believe that there isn't some huge sanction for timewasters, like a grand fine or something.

Thanks for the responses. I'm ok. But sobering to realise that help when we need it most might come too late.

The ambulance crew explained that they also have a serial time waster. He's been officially banned from calling them because there is never an emergency, he just invents one so he can have someone to chat to. Because he's now been banned from abusing the service, he's apparently taken to eg calling his bank and saying "your mistake has made me suicidal, I'm going to kill myself"...so the bank staff are then obligated to call an ambulance out to him. So that abuser has worked around the system. The crew said the call outs to him always take around three hours.

They said the service is on its knees jn their view because:

A) GPs are fielding stuff to them more than before
B) low staff due to Covid sickness
C) many, many time wasters who view the ambulance as a quicker way to be admitted to A and E and without the taxi fee or parking charge involved in getting themselves there.

YANBU and it’s honestly my worst nightmare. Literally, I used to have dreams about not being able to get through to 999 and I thanked the world they were just dreams but it is a reality now. My husband needed 999 a few years ago and it took 15 mins for the ambulance to arrive and that felt like long enough but it doesn’t even compare to the state of it now

My baby needed urgent care this year and we called 111 on hold for 45 minutes before we hung up and went to A&E (he needed a nebuliser an monitoring of oxygen levels)

The ambulance crew explained that they also have a serial time waster. He's been officially banned from calling them because there is never an emergency, he just invents one so he can have someone to chat to. Because he's now been banned from abusing the service, he's apparently taken to eg calling his bank and saying "your mistake has made me suicidal, I'm going to kill myself"...so the bank staff are then obligated to call an ambulance out to him. So that abuser has worked around the system. The crew said the call outs to him always take around three hours.

As much as I sympathise with the problems caused by timewasters. It's very unprofessional of the ambulance crew to openly discuss patients with others.

I don't think people who can wait over 2 hours for an ambulance need one. They should get a taxi.

I had to wait over two hours last night for my ambulance.

The crew had to carry me on a trolley from bedroom to inside the ambulance ...and the same at the other end. I wasn't well enough to walk more than one or two steps. Is the taxi driver going to come into my bedroom and carry me out as well?!

I don't know what the answer is. A 12 year old with a sprained ankle and a parent with a car should not be able to get an ambulance, I think, but an 80 year old with no other support would probably die of starvation due to nobody else being able to take her in and her overall mobility. So it's not as easy as saying "this injury should be allowed but that one can't". No easy answers but six and a half minutes before anyone asked me if the patient was breathing is terrifying.

There's also unfortunately and understandably an issue with people who call 999 constantly for an update on the ambulance arrival, there was a thread the other day as the op was (again understandably) frustrated at a wait for her df who'd had a fall at home, its hard though as this then means new calls can't be answered which lead to the waits for the call to be answered.

It's really shocking. I read a local case of a man having a heart attack outside a GP surgery where he was heading for an appointment. None of the doctors would come out to him - and the ambulance took an hour, and he died.

I've been in some scary house fires - and every second feels like an eternity. It would be horrifying waiting with a loved one in an emergency.

Maybe if people stopped voting for the tories who've spend years and years cutting the funding, we'd be out of this mess.
I currently live in another European country and here on the two occasions that we've had the call, it was answered immediately and ambulance with us in less than 15 mins.

My worst nightmare too and the same happened to us a few weeks ago.

My 10 month old DS woke from sleep wheezing and breathing with great difficulty. I called 999, ot took 7 minutes to connect to someone, and despite him being high priority, the ambulance didn't arrive for almost an hour. AWFUL.

One of mine had a serious seizure that wouldn’t stop in a Friday night at 2am. Thankfully a first responder in a car got there fast but the ambulance was nearly an hour, the first guy was on his radio losing his shit after a while. Dd was running a heart rate of 260+, fitting and fitting and with low oxygen. The ambulance that came arrived from two counties over, the crew were a bit surprised to be sent but apparently it was the only option- they’d driven down a motorway on blue lights.

DP takes 999 calls for the police. He says they often have 10+ calls queueing on the 999 line. The issue is so few of those calls need a 999 response. People call 999 because an ATM swallowed their debit card or they’ve missed their last train and want a lift home.
I can only imagine that the ambulance service deals with the same or worse. Of course we need more investment in the NHS but the general public need to sort themselves out a bit too. Ambulances aren’t bloody hospital taxis!

@MichelleScarn

There's also unfortunately and understandably an issue with people who call 999 constantly for an update on the ambulance arrival, there was a thread the other day as the op was (again understandably) frustrated at a wait for her df who'd had a fall at home, its hard though as this then means new calls can't be answered which lead to the waits for the call to be answered.

That’s called failure demand, and it will choke the system up. The only way to avoid it is to provide a decent service, designed against need. I didn’t know it was hitting the ambulance service, but when people call for an emergency and are terrified you can understand why they do it.