Ambulance and A&E performance drop to lowest levels on record

[JC544D]

Ambulance and A&E performance drop to lowest levels on record

Are I being unreasonable in saying that this is the worst that we can ever remember it?

I used to think that if you called an ambulance in an emergency, that they would come rushing. That's what the emergency services are for.

Sadly, I don't think that this is any longer the case. It feels that today, you are just going to have to wait, if they even turn up at all. The same applies to the other emergency services.

What happened?

My DH works for the ambulance service and they spend most of their time at A&E waiting to hand patients over. He was there for 4 and a half hours on a recent shift, just sat in the ambulance , so it means they can’t respond to any other calls. Not A&E fault it’s just chaos.

Around a month ago, I fainted on my way to the loo in the middle of the night and woke to DH standing over me, panicked as I had been out cold for nearly a minute. I felt terrible, my heart was racing and I felt so dizzy I couldn't get up - I was struggling to breathe, I felt like I was having to drag each breath in and my stomach muscles were screaming with the effort. I realised it was serious and asked DH to call 999.

It took them 16 minutes to even answer the call - it was 1:15am on a Tuesday morning! I felt so awful that I asked DH if he could remember how to do CPR, as I felt like I was fading away. When he was eventually able to speak to someone, he was very clear about how desperate the situation was - he told them he thought I was dying. By this time our DDs (aged 13 & 14) had joined us and my DM was on her way to us. DH called 999 3 further times to chase help before they finally got to us.

It took 2 hours and 27 minutes from the start of that call for the ambulance to arrive, by which time I was unconscious and my DH had placed me in the recovery position. It was incredibly traumatic for everyone. I was taken straight into hospital and had life saving emergency surgery almost immediately. Much longer and I would have died - I'm only 41!

We were told the delay was due to ambulances queueing at another hospital in the county, albeit one over an hour from us. Now I'm home and recovering, I'm going to be writing to my MP. Whatever is happening in politics, this type of failure is not acceptable and is already costing lives, action clearly needs to be taken somewhere along the line.

People thinking it’s about covid?
Well why aren’t GPS and hospitals providing the therapeutic treatment options before people need ambulances for covid? They approve all the drugs but don’t give them.
I’ve been abroad for 3 months - where as soon as the result comes in, it is an option at anytime to get monoclonal, various tablets, IVs of vitamins.

And for people saying they can't get a GP appointment, there are lots of walk in centres around.

This is very regional. There are hardly any in my county and the nearest one to me is ten miles away.

I get fed up with it always being the public who are blamed. If there are regularly people who've had strokes waiting hours and elderly patients with broken hips lying on the floor for 13 hours there is a significant systemic problem. I have no doubt it relates to the problems with A&E which are often a knock-on effect of the difficulty in seeing a GP. I think the difficulties with the GP syst.here underpin a large part.of.our healthcare issues.

There was a post I was reading on MN a day or two ago from someone who lives in Norway. She said there are plentiful GPs there even though they are paid significantly less than GPs on England but said their working conditions are much better. With so many GPs due to retire soon, I think we need to look at how to make General Practice more attractive to work in.

And people also need to write to their MPs.

@Poppetlove

People thinking it’s about covid? Well why aren’t GPS and hospitals providing the therapeutic treatment options before people need ambulances for covid? They approve all the drugs but don’t give them. I’ve been abroad for 3 months - where as soon as the result comes in, it is an option at anytime to get monoclonal, various tablets, IVs of vitamins.

Because the list of who's entitled to them is very limited - only some of the previously designated CEV. The drugs are on trial so sometimes there aren't enough available on any one day. Plus you have to be able to order them and get them picked up from an open pharmacy.

@MrsSkylerWhite

GoadyToady

Dickheads ringing 111 with chest pain is a factor, they get escalated almost every time to 999.

Who then arrange an ambulance when someone could have took the patient to A&E in the first place. I had someone moan to me recently, “we waited 3 hours for the ambulance so I drove him to A&E myself”

Why didn’t you just bloody do that in the first place?

I’m not defending the whole system, handovers are a nightmare I know.

But no doubt someone will be along to mention the Tories soon. It’s like MN bingo.“

Because if you drive the patient to A&E yourself, they sit in a waiting room awaiting triage. On a busy day, this can take several hours. Once assessed, there is a further wait until they are seen by a doctor.
If a patient arrives by ambulance, they receive medical attention by qualified staff immediately on arrival and are under the care of the paramedics until they are handed over to A&E staff.

It’s really not difficult to understand.

Arriving at a and e in an ambulance does not mean you are going to go into A&E and be seen by a qualified Healthcare professional. Have you not seen all the news articles about the queues of ambulances outside A&E waiting to offload patients?

Sadly I've been that patient in those ambulances 9 times in the last 10 months and it is horrible. I have genuine condition that needs urgent emergency help.

My personal assistant rang 999 when I collapsed and was unresponsive yet she was having to wait over 4 hours before somebody came to help. She was frantic (and doesn't get paid enough for that responsibility). When the ambulance arrived the paramedics on board realised they weren't qualified enough to do what needed doing so we had to wait for the emergency responder and apparently that's another 40 minutes. In all that time I was unconscious and unresponsive. It's frightening.

Once you're unconscious you can't do anything whatsoever about getting help and you have to rely on somebody being there where to get that help for you, it's that help now quite often isn't available.

Oh, the I also got a phone call from the ambulance service saying that I was using that service too much and they were going to send somebody out to come and discuss this with me. I suggested they would be better off discussing this with the consultants there was supposed to be treating me and not discussing it with me who has no influence on the amount of times I become conscious just a medical condition. It's a f joke

Hmm, let's see
I have been called out cos someone stubbed a toe and it was ouchy. 40 mins wasted

Then there was the girl with a hangover, who thought she was dying, an hour there

Person with a bleedy broken finger nail but it was sooooooo painful another hour gone

All 999 emergencies

Oh and you know COVID dealing with vivid patients everyday, we can't work

The trouble is the ambulance drivers are probably like teachers and nurses and too busy partying at work

Seriously Maybe stop making shite up ?

Yes
Let's not pretend all HCPs are angels
I wouldn't let some of them look after a dog

True , some are nasty, uncaring lazy bastards.

I had a patient asking me if I enjoyed my holiday .
I worked through Covid , sweating through the summer in PPE .
I wasn't furloughed . Didn't WFH .
Risked catching every scrap of virus going .
Certainly no partying going on

The whole NHS care system is broken & nobody wants to mend it, just put a plaster on instead of doing a proper repair. It is probably costing more to run broken than it would to mend & run efficiently. GP's sit in their surgeries dictating who can & can't get an appointment, getting to see someone face to face is near impossible, they try to fob you off with seeing a HCA & that is if you can even get through on the phone & get through the surgery door. Until we get a government who wants to properly fund the NHS then things will never change.

@elizabethdraper

Hmm, let's see I have been called out cos someone stubbed a toe and it was ouchy. 40 mins wasted

Then there was the girl with a hangover, who thought she was dying, an hour there

Person with a bleedy broken finger nail but it was sooooooo painful another hour gone

All 999 emergencies

That's the fault of the call assessors surely. I mean the it's were at fault originally but the CA's should not have sent on those calls

People drunk on a Friday night getting their stomach pumped

People unable to make a rational decision

People unwilling to take accountability for their own health I. E. Smoking, drinking, eating shit food

And lack of funding

NHS isn't fit for purpose anymore

Tories and their policy of austerity happened. Been like this for 12 years.

@Brieandcamembert

Problem is no one looks after themselves any more. People eat badly, don't exercise so the NHS money all goes on preventable illness.

Also people go to A&E with the most ridiculous things. I've seen tonsillitis in A&E FFS.

@Brieandcamembert define ridiculous please, about 3 years ago I had a serious case of the runs after a week of it I went to my GP saw a nurse who said it was due to antibiotics I had taken for a chest infection, a week later it was worse back to GP who diagnosed a virus gave me a prescription for imodium, I had a week off after that on the Wednesday my DH came home and found me semi conscious on the sofa I was in a bad way, he took me to A&E, I am sure you would think that going to A&E for the runs was ridiculous, well so did the Triage Nurse especially when my worried husband asked if I could see a Gastroenterologist, well that was that she wouldn't even let me a see a Dr, she accused me and DH of trying to leapfrog the waiting list and see a specialist through A&E, rudely told me to go home and see my GP. Well luckily I had already made an appointment for the next day it was with the Dr who told me it was a virus, he was visibly shocked by the amount of weight I had lost since he last saw me, wrote a referral letter for me then and there so it was back to A&E that day , I was in hospital for 13 days 11 of which were in isolation I had SEPSIS, I could have died I was very very ill, yet I was turned away from hospital just the day before by a Triage Nurse who thought I was being ridiculous. Of course I could have complained but to be honest once I was in and being treated I could not fault the care I got from the NHS

@BetsyBigNose how scary, glad you are ok

Our services are stretched due to over population but hey let's blame all the old people shall we, how dare they live beyond 80 and expect care!!

The general public need to take a long hard look at themselves and start treating the NHS with respect. It's completely taken for granted, people demand a gp appointment for things that could easily be sorted at the pharmacy. When they don't get that gp appointment they then go to A&E or call an ambulance. The service was never designed to be used the way it is used and by so many people.

I agree that more education would help eg the role of pharmacists/basic first aid but you will always get people who don't turn up for an appointment etc. On the flip side you get a lot of people like me who never book doctor appointments.

There is an issue with not being able to get GP appointments but I'm not sure how we solve it. I have experience of the French system & it's far superior. We do need to pay more but everyone does which wii not be popular, free prescriptions for over 60s is unsustainable.

The NHS is not fit for purpose, people don't like to hear that as they think it's all just down to lack of funding. It's not, the model is broken. We do need to look at the European models, not America, and shift the system.
People are living longer and there are more people in the country today, putting a much bigger strain on the system. Of course, it's great people are living longer but there's a knock on effect.
The NHS needs an overhaul. People need to stop walking in for cold symptoms or ringing an ambulance when there are other ways to get there. Things like broken bones are always a low priority.

Our services are stretched due to over population but hey let's blame all the old people shall we, how dare they live beyond 80 and expect care!!

Err why do you think our population has grown? Factually we have an ageing population. Acknowledging that fact doesn't mean blame older people we just need better planning & provision.

@portionplate I wasn't talking about old people

Our services are stretched due to over population but hey let's blame all the old people shall we, how dare they live beyond 80 and expect care!!

You mention old people but you're not talking about old people? 🤔

@portionplate Over population doesn't have to mean old people !!

@lollipoprainbow but you are aware the growth in population here has been driven by people living longer?