One rule for the rich!

[Areyou4real]

Richard Madeley felt a bit ill and what did North Wales NHS say?
“We sent a paramedic in a rapid-response car and an emergency ambulance to the scene, and one patient was taken to hospital.”
Yet my friends 87 year old mum was left lying in the street for 5 hours with a fractured pelvis before an ambulance arrived.
It make me sick!

@girlmom21 oh I see, from the requirement of a fast response I have a feeling whatever was wrong with him would have been serious.

Sadly there aren't as many resources as we'd like to think

@Mrsjayy

Ah well I think I'm going to leave you to it.

Wise

I work night shift in a care home. One night someone had aspirated on vomit, took ambulance 10 mins to get there. Have had residents who have fallen with suspected # hip, have had to wait 5-8 hours for ambulance.

@NEbotherpet 100% agree. If you're made to wait longer it's because there are higher priority cases health wise - not celebrity status-wise!

@girlmom21 yes exactly that's why all the calls are triaged and graded accordingly.

Sad that elderly people have to wait but that's the sad reality of it, there's just not enough to go around.

@ChuckMater

Its nothing to do with being rich or poor. You are aware of how triage works arent you? Do you know what always wrong with him or his symptoms? Unfortunately am elderly person with a fractured pelvis isn't a prior over breathing or chest pains/ young child, etc

This.

You are just creating drama based on an incorrect assumption that this is about being rich or poor.

It was about medical need and the availability of ambulances at the time, which unfortunately does vary.

Do you really think that an NHS responder is allowed to prioritise someone because they are vaguely famous? Don't be so ridiculous. In my experience they don't even take your name until the ambulance is already on its way.

Lifted Entertainment.
You can get in touch with them via their website.

@cookiemonster2468
This is 100%

The first question is always the location and if the patient is breathing and conscious. They're then triaged and graded, most the time the ambulance would be on route before names etc are taken.

It's got nothing to do with status, but is just a fact that there's not enough resources

You think the 999 call handler thought “its Richard madeley! I must break all the rules and send him an ambulance above others who are far more ill”

Part of this is luck of the draw, someone being left for ages isn’t acceptable, but what do you think the call handlers are doing? Filtering ambulances through to annoying itv presenters who don’t really need them? We had an ambulance arrive at our house in 8 minutes the other week. It was a precaution, I’d called 111 to ask about something and they said they would send an ambulance. We went to hospital and the paramedic said we might need to wait outside in the ambulance depending on how busy it was, but we went straight in. They found nothing wrong, we were sent home. I am neither rich nor famous. But I guess just happened to call at the right time. Maybe if I’d called a few hours later it would have been different, who knows.

@girlmom21

They were probably much busier when she had her injury and her injury wasn't life threatening. For all we know he could have been having chest pains or something that could suggest a blood clot, heart attack, brain tumour.

If they're only 5 minutes from the hospital, surely by your logic someone could have just taken her in the car?

A pelvic fracture can be life threatening for numerous reasons. I doubt you'd want to be driven to hospital in a car if it happened to you.

It was most likely assigned as a Cat 1 and if they thought it was something like an ongoing heart attack then they would resource it like that. You can only go off the information you've been given, and people do tend to panic when they call 999. For all we know they could have said they weren't sure he was breathing or something.

There are so many variables aside from category of call too, such as time of day and location, that it's impossible to take two different calls of a different nature in different places at different times of day and compare them.

One rich person got taken to hospital faster than one not-rich person and you've come on the Internet to rant that the ambulance service is obviously in cahoots with minor ITV celebrities?

There's a lot of misinformation on this thread. DH works in the control room for an ambulance service in a different area.

Elderly fallers are unfortunately given a low priority. It is not immediately life threatening in the way, for example, that someone who is having trouble breathing could be in immediate risk.

I'm aware from him that celebrities often are prioritised over other callers.

@Pedalpushers

One rich person got taken to hospital faster than one not-rich person and you've come on the Internet to rant that the ambulance service is obviously in cahoots with minor ITV celebrities?

@thinkfast

There's a lot of misinformation on this thread. DH works in the control room for an ambulance service in a different area.

Elderly fallers are unfortunately given a low priority. It is not immediately life threatening in the way, for example, that someone who is having trouble breathing could be in immediate risk.

I'm aware from him that celebrities often are prioritised over other callers.

Your DH's trust needs reporting. My DSis works in a control room too and this absolutely isn't the case in her trust. My DF does analysis for the ambulance service and this definitely isn't the case.

It’s pot luck on what’s available at the time , when I needed an ambulance i got a fast response car within 10 minutes , and I’ve had occasion to call a few ambulances in the past few years for my mum before she died and they always came promptly.

Breaking news!

Life's not always fair.

My Dad has a heart attack 3 weeks ago and waited 4 hours for an ambulance from this Trust, he is now in itensive care. He is 49 years old. No fast response car came to help him!

6 hours for an ambulance for an 85 year old woman who had fallen

yet a "celeb" gets what it seems like instant access to hospital

id like to know if he jumped the queue

@thinkfast

There's a lot of misinformation on this thread. DH works in the control room for an ambulance service in a different area.

Elderly fallers are unfortunately given a low priority. It is not immediately life threatening in the way, for example, that someone who is having trouble breathing could be in immediate risk.

I'm aware from him that celebrities often are prioritised over other callers.

You're putting misinformation on this thread. I worked in ambulance control for a number of years and there's no way you could override the system and upgrade somebodies priority solely because they're a celebrity. That's ridiculous!

I imagine he had chest pain which is why he got help there so quickly. That's standard

My DM had 3 falls in the space of 10 minutes. The third fall was a collapse after we had got her up from the second fall. She had hit her head on the first fall.

I phoned an ambulance and although it took about 3 minutes to get through from the operator because they are so busy, once we got through they said they would send a first responder within 2-3 minutes and an ambulance within 14 minutes.

In the end, the ambulance got there and the first responder didn't. I was impressed. They examined her, did obs, etc., then the paramedic decided he wasn't happen with our story (she had gurgled a bit after falling and her lips went blue, with slurred speech, but back to normal once the ambulance had arrived) so took her to hospital with Dad. 4 hours later, after they'd ruled out a stroke, I went and got them.

Presumably ITV funded a private ambulance bearing in mind he was in effect at wkrk

Did the person who made the call actually tell the call handler that it was Richard Madeley who was ill? I doubt it, they don't just hear a celebrity name and upgrade the call to a Cat 1.

Your relative was unlucky. Betsi Cadwaladr UHB need to improve but it's not Madeley's fault that he happened to fall ill at a quieter time.

To be fair to the OP and super critical, the people making the decisions are human. If they hear a VIP needs help they may be minded to bump them to the front of the queue over Jane Doe.

Of course we don’t know the details of the call or how busy it was on the night but whilst I’d like to believe it always is a priority by need first service, I could absolutely see people being prioritised for different reasons on occasions too (as happens in nearly any other service I can think about).