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.

South West Ambulance Service have declared a major incident and Welsh Ambulance Service have declared a Business Continuity Incident this week, and I'm sure others will follow in the coming days/weeks.

These incidents are not declared lightly as they are politically significant. They also represent a really really bad situation. If the ambulance service was recieving the call volumes that they were equipped to deal with and the hospitals were able to take patients off ambulances promptly in order to free them up to attend the next emergency then they wouldn't be in a state of major incidence/ BCI.

The best you can do at the moment to recieve prompt care is find someone to take you by car to hospital, be it a relative, friend, neighbour or taxi. Patients with significant injuries are being bought into hospital in the back of camper vans and cars with seats down. This is the reality of the current situation.

@FrankiesKnuckle I honestly don't know why anyone would become a paramedic.
But hey, you aren't even important enough to warrant being officially classed as an emergency service are you 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

There are safeguards in place to prevent this happening. If the waiting time for 999 is more than about 60/90 seconds the call is automatically transferred to another control centre. So eg in Scotland calls are transferred to NI. (The issue of the wait for an ambulance to actually reach you is a different story…)

I’d be staggered if there wasn’t more to this.

It's an absolute shit show, nationally.
There are so many factors as to why there are frankly inexcusable delays in call answering and ambulance dispatch.
Not enough staff in the control room or on the road.
The worried well, those that can't get through to 111 so call 999 for advice.
The mildly unwell that seemingly cannot grasp self care.
Social problems, mental health problems, domestic problems. Elderly care (or lack there of)
Those that demand an ambulance because they pay their taxes (and unfortunately can't pay for taxis which would often be more appropriate) Those that when you turn up, the patient walks to the ambulance and a family member follows on in one of the fleet of cars that are sat outside.

And then there are the real emergencies. Stroke, heart attack, asthma attack, trauma - the very people that we should be helping we are failing.

Im a paramedic, in my trust it's not unusual to start a shift and to be told there are 200+ calls holding - that is jobs with no ambulances to send to. At the height of the 2nd wave, it was 700+ and call answering was 10minutes+.

The call handlers work from a script, even if the job is a blatant waste of time, they cannot refuse a resource if they trigger a response on the script. Call handlers get 'marked down' if they deviate from the script, hence the set of questions that seemingly infuriate a lot of people.
We are seeing demand now like the middle of winter. It has been a relentless summer.
We can only do one job at a time.
The pressure that control room staff are under is enormous, people are breaking down at work because of the relentless chaos in the room.
And yes we get flagged down, which we have to stop at. There are too many jobs at any one time for our dispatchers to warn us of in case we pass a call that has come in but we're on another one iyswim.

*What needs to change?
Funding on all aspects of the NHS. Social care, elderly care, mental health care (which is woefully underfunded)
Better access and understanding of utilising urgent care services, GP sevices.
A large majority of people need to learn how to self care, to take ownership of their bodies and health.
We need to get away from the 'just want to be checked over' brigade.
Covid needs to fuck off.

This winter is going to be hell, like last winter.
I'm not sure how much more I can take, or my colleagues.
I'm regularly doing 15 hour shifts, not by choice, but if we get a long late job, that's home time fucked.
We get shouted out, screamed at, assaulted. We often walk in to volatile environments, hostility from patients and families and frankly who can blame them when they've waited many hours for an ambulance?
(Which makes it worse when said hostile people fucking walk on/walk off)

I've had a long day, can you tell?*

@FrankiesKnuckle thank you so much for this post, it is very informative and interesting - and awful - to read. And thank you for doing a difficult job in challenging circumstances. The system really appears to be on its knees. Meanwhile there are, it seems, many many people who think it's ok to abuse the ambulance service, and many obstacles to the emergency services set up that seem to be getting worse and worse.

@DingleyDel

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?

Me too My ds is 17 and all his friends know to ring 999 in an emergency. It's always reassured me to think that paramedics would be with him within minutes but if it's taking that length of time to get through it would potentially be too late for some.

This happened where I live this week. Just heartbreaking. Breathing difficulties in a cancer patient and still the wait was 8 hours.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-shropshire-58506181

Two years ago my mum collapsed in agony with what turned out to be a perforated ulcer. She was drifting in and out of consciousness and the call handler stayed on the phone with me - for four and a half hours until the ambulance came from a station forty miles away.

I was shocked when DM 81 had a fall last year and we waited 5 hours for ambulance (she wasn’t even at home) I was worried about hypothermia as she was displaying shock symptoms
Crew were lovely when they arrived but A n E missed a broken hip and she suffered for days before I insisted on a second opinion
It really scared me for my future - how on earth anyone who hasn’t got family or friends to champion their cause survives I’ve no idea

Nc for this, but long time MN user.

I'm an ambulance controller, so basically once your call has been taken by the call assessor, I decide who gets the next available ambulance within my division.

Our job at the moment is exhausting, heartbreaking, and basically impossible.

The system is broken, quite simply broken. Each ambulance service performs differently, the aim is to answer each call in 5 seconds in my service, and we achieve that usually in 99% of cases, however in the last 6 months that has dropped massively and 10min call connect times are not unheard of.

We know that the callers waiting could be in a truly life threatening position and we do everything we can to get our call assessors free from their current call and on to the next one.

We have become the catch all service,

mental health- us, because theres so many gaping holes in the provision. Regular callers that know exactly how to answer the questions to get a response and know the crew you send will be there for at least 3 hours. Some callers can call upwards of ten times per day! They will probably get an ambulance twice in 24 hours based on the fact you cannot just assume they're not telling the truth.

what should be gp calls- us, because, some but not all are still not doing face to face and the receptionist tells their service user to call 999, or patients are left for 4 weeks awaiting an appointment so their condition deteriorates to the point of needing 999.

people that have already been to hospital and got fed up of waiting - us, because why wait in a&e when a uberlance can treat you at home?

maternity calls- us because honestly why waste money on taxi fair's and parking? And you know their partners worried about them ruining his seats in his nice car that's parked on the drive (for clarity, I am not talking obstetric emergency cases here, but standard I'm in expected labour cases)

hospital capacity issues - us because some hospitals have planned to hold patients on ambulances to save overcrowding emergency dept waiting areas, and you know, why pay their staff when they can use ours for free. We are meant to provide pre hospital care, not in the hospital car park or corridor care.

To bust a few myths or misconceptions though, we do triage calls, not everyone gets an ambulance, if you can make your own way we will call back to suggest this or direct you to appropriate alternative services. A poster up thread said we can't refuse to take someone to hospital if they insist on going, we certainly can refuse and do regularly. And, if one of my crews had called to say they'd been flagged down to someone with a poorly hand rather than the immediately life threatening case they were assigned to I'd have instructed them to proceed to the life threatening callwhilat advising the other person to call 999 themselves.

I'm frustrated, my colleagues are frustrated, we feel like we're playing god at times, and you pray that you've made the right choice. I mean I know Betty has been on the floor for 28 hours now, but I'm going to have to divert her ambulance to the blue baby, because my other ambulances in this area are already in attendance, or they've been in the hospital car park for 6 hours and still haven't handed their patient over.

It's not unusual for a crew on a 12 hour shift to only see 1 patient as they cannot get them in to the hospital staffs care. They should in effect see maybe 4 to 5 per shift.

There's so much more I could say but this is a TLDR post already unfortunately.

@Neenaw999 hugs from a police controller sister 😣

Bloody Hell! That’s so shocking! I’d just assumed that if you rang 999 you would speak to someone who could help you straightaway. I had no idea you’d be put on hold. It could quite literally be the difference between life and death in some cases. Really frightening thought.

@TomorrowSomething

I would expect / hope that a service designed specifically to respond to energencies (sometimes life or death) would have an initial responce time or seconds. As in, the caller is put straight through. Otherwise it's not really fit for purpose it it? I don't know what the solutiin is.

I hope you're ok.

Exactly this. Sadly, it's understaffed, underfunded and overworked. Add to that people who don't really need to be calling (who could make their own way to hospital), and it's just a disaster in progress.

@Neenaw999 thank you your post, it's interesting to get the insider's point of view.

I struggled to reply to this thread as just talking about this makes me feel physically sick. 3 years ago I had to call an ambulance for my 6 year olds who had broken their collarbone and was stuck lying face down unable to move screaming in agony. It took the ambulance 4 hours to arrive. She was going in and out of consciousness. I thought she was dying. I wasn’t even on hold with 999 at that point, they left me too it as she was screaming so obviously not near death. Once they finally came we were halfway to a hospital when we stumbled upon a crashed car on the motorway blocking the fastlane. No one there so they had obviously been drunk or something and run off. We had to wait on the motorway with the lights flashing so no one hit the crashed car until the police came to make it safe. 2 hours we sat there. I was terrified for my child in case someone didn’t stop in time and hit the ambulance. It was one of the worst nights of my life. Once in A&E a brusque nurse who hardly spoke English kept manhandling my child and making her scream. In the end I had to have a full meltdown and stop anyone touching her until she had had some proper pain relief. She was only properly cared for once I had completely exploded and we were moved to the children’s ward. She got good care there but I was left with no food, shower or change of clothes for the 5 days we were in. Our NHS is absolutely shit and I am terrified everytime we have to use it.

In our area the ambulance control room has started calling the police when they can’t get to emergencies. Firearms officers have advanced first aid training so they get sent to deal.

Which then ties up a highly trained firearms unit dealing with a medical emergency.

How the fuck are people allowed to
a) Flag down an ambulance
b) ‘Commander’ one? Why didn’t it just drive off?
God save me

@Neenaw999 I'm generalizing about not being able to refuse calls, you know the ones that get through the system.... there are many!

Running calls, again generalizing 😬
But you know we can't ignore a windmill in the street, it'll only garner a complaint.

I could not work that room, where ever you are I'm sure it's the same where I am - same shit different post code right?
Hats off to you lot.

FoxtrotKilo out.

*There are safeguards in place to prevent this happening. If the waiting time for 999 is more than about 60/90 seconds the call is automatically transferred to another control centre. So eg in Scotland calls are transferred to NI. (The issue of the wait for an ambulance to actually reach you is a different story…)

I’d be staggered if there wasn’t more to this.*

And yet there are multiple posters on this thread saying this has happened to them, plus staff who have said on this thread that it is happening in their trust.

Here's a screenshot of my call. Once through to her the whole conversation only took less than three minutes. I looked at the call timer when she picked up and it showed I'd been on hold for 6'29" - six and half minutes.

@Neenaw999

Nc for this, but long time MN user.

I'm an ambulance controller, so basically once your call has been taken by the call assessor, I decide who gets the next available ambulance within my division.

Our job at the moment is exhausting, heartbreaking, and basically impossible.

The system is broken, quite simply broken. Each ambulance service performs differently, the aim is to answer each call in 5 seconds in my service, and we achieve that usually in 99% of cases, however in the last 6 months that has dropped massively and 10min call connect times are not unheard of.

We know that the callers waiting could be in a truly life threatening position and we do everything we can to get our call assessors free from their current call and on to the next one.

We have become the catch all service,

mental health- us, because theres so many gaping holes in the provision. Regular callers that know exactly how to answer the questions to get a response and know the crew you send will be there for at least 3 hours. Some callers can call upwards of ten times per day! They will probably get an ambulance twice in 24 hours based on the fact you cannot just assume they're not telling the truth.

what should be gp calls- us, because, some but not all are still not doing face to face and the receptionist tells their service user to call 999, or patients are left for 4 weeks awaiting an appointment so their condition deteriorates to the point of needing 999.

people that have already been to hospital and got fed up of waiting - us, because why wait in a&e when a uberlance can treat you at home?

maternity calls- us because honestly why waste money on taxi fair's and parking? And you know their partners worried about them ruining his seats in his nice car that's parked on the drive (for clarity, I am not talking obstetric emergency cases here, but standard I'm in expected labour cases)

hospital capacity issues - us because some hospitals have planned to hold patients on ambulances to save overcrowding emergency dept waiting areas, and you know, why pay their staff when they can use ours for free. We are meant to provide pre hospital care, not in the hospital car park or corridor care.

To bust a few myths or misconceptions though, we do triage calls, not everyone gets an ambulance, if you can make your own way we will call back to suggest this or direct you to appropriate alternative services. A poster up thread said we can't refuse to take someone to hospital if they insist on going, we certainly can refuse and do regularly. And, if one of my crews had called to say they'd been flagged down to someone with a poorly hand rather than the immediately life threatening case they were assigned to I'd have instructed them to proceed to the life threatening callwhilat advising the other person to call 999 themselves.

I'm frustrated, my colleagues are frustrated, we feel like we're playing god at times, and you pray that you've made the right choice. I mean I know Betty has been on the floor for 28 hours now, but I'm going to have to divert her ambulance to the blue baby, because my other ambulances in this area are already in attendance, or they've been in the hospital car park for 6 hours and still haven't handed their patient over.

It's not unusual for a crew on a 12 hour shift to only see 1 patient as they cannot get them in to the hospital staffs care. They should in effect see maybe 4 to 5 per shift.

There's so much more I could say but this is a TLDR post already unfortunately.

No it’s not TLDR it’s very interesting! I wonder who pays for ambulances - the council? It seems to vary by area. I got one immediately upon calling in well off areas I’ve lived in. Other places took hours.

Why are ambulances stopping for people flagging them down if they're on a call. Stopping for someone with toothache or a drunk seems crazy. I can't believe they actually stop and let them get in the ambulance.

@TolkiensFallow

I’m sorry this happened to you.

Yes the ambulance service is on its knees. The conservatives have been running the nhs into the ground for years and this is the consequence.

Well luckily we have lots of people coming into the UK so we can recruit them and increase the number of essential staff. Oh wait .....

I had to call an ambulance for my 1 yo DD. It happened mid way through the last england euro game. Strangely they weren't busy at all at the time, they even said as much when they arrived in less than 10 min. I mean thank god they did but it does say alot about the people that take the piss.

The other thing with overflowing 9s to other areas is that they can't send the info.
Eg. Devon abd Cornwall police can't cope with their 999 demand, BT ask Avon abd Somerset to help. They can't as they also are in massive demand. So maybe Hampshire police are next in line.
Hants calltakers don't have same computer system, don't know the area, don't have the correct mapping, can't check history on addresses etc, no way ti "send" the job for dispatch. So call handler in Hants ground then has to try abd get through to Devon & Cornwall to get the job put on their system. But because it's coming from another force it's nit prioritised - because we have no way of identifying whether the out if force caller is a redirected 999 call or some DC phoning to get contact details for xyz custody centre.

@Neenaw999 I'd imagine it is mentally exhausting.
Great username btw.