There is no ambulance service anymore

[Snog]

Twice so far this year NHS111 have told me that my dd needs paramedics to attend for severe chest and abdominal pain and that they are on their way.

Both times the ambulance service called me later and said they would not be attending that night as too busy.

I am posting this because I want people to know that there is no functional ambulance service any more.

If you need an ambulance try to take your loved one to hospital yourself instead. This could save their life.

Obviously when you get to hospital good luck with that but at least you are not waiting for an ambulance that will never come.

In my FILs case that could have been fatal. He had a suspected fractured pelvis and moving him could have caused him to bleed to death.

DH was classed as having a suspected heart attack recently (history, chest pains, shortness of breath, clammy). They said an ambulance was being sent, 20 mins later we got a call back to say no ambulance available could we either make our own way or they would send a taxi. Scary times, we can't take medical emergency help for granted anymore.

I agree. If only the government would stop funding absolute tosh like Healthwatch England and actually put the money towards ambulance care, social care etc. (Which Healthwatch mansplain about every single week. Yes we know the NHS and social care is in a poor state. We can see it for ourselves)

Instead ambulance care is utter shite and Healthwatch employees get paid quite a lot for making absolutely no impact whatsoever.

(And other publicly funding tosh groups who claim to be making a difference but aren't!!)

Sorry I used to work for Healthwatch England. And watching public money being pissed up against a wall absolutely infuriates me.

Sorry for my rant!

I wonder how long it will be before we get private 999 emergency ambulances?

Or have we already?

Tbh I think private 999 service is not far away

@Explaintome
Clinical desk (Paramedics, nurses, APs) will filter these calls and attempt as best as possible to assess over the phone, and encourage bystanders to help them up off the floor if it is deemed suitable. But there is often a delay to talk to the clinical desk, as they are also overseeing the welfare all the patients waiting for long periods for ambulances, so have quite a stack of jobs to work through.

Hi. I have a paramedic in my immediate family and I can assure you, it’s still there. There’s a couple of really core reasons why the service is on its knees (and it is) at the moment:

firstly and the biggest thing my family member (FM) has seen a massive rise in is people calling an ambulance because they can’t get a GP appointment. Often it’s the children of elderly relatives who call and ambulance for their parent in the hopes it will get them seen faster if they arrive in a and e on a trolley. Generally, if you’re over 75 then you’re going to have enough red flags (with a bit of hamming it up) to make it risky to leave you in your own home so you’ll get bussed to hospital in fear of you keeling over the next day and it becoming daily Mail fodder. The fact GP home visits are like hens teeth is also a massive problem.

Secondly, frequent flyers completely hobble the service. These are people with social issues who call an ambulance every couple of days but then continue to ring all day and get crews out each time because they know what to say. In our area there’s a person who calls complaining of upper abdo and chest pain about 4 days a week. They have IBS. No major mental health complaints, just IBS and a level of health anxiety.

Finally it’s the wait times at a and e front doors. Can’t hand over patients until there’s space, so quite often spend a good half of a shift sat outside a and e to hand over. It’s not their fault either, they’re running on unsafe staffing levels and because no one can see GP’s quickly, they just collect everyone who’s got even the slightest issue.

It’s not even the fault of people who turn up to a and e with minor complaints - I don’t blame them either. They’ve got a medical issue and as far as they’re concerned they’re going to a medical facility to fix it. No point advertising ‘only go if it’s serious’ because to them, it is serious.

The fault lies with the deliberate and systematic selling off and underfunding of the NHS for years and years. Make the jobs poorly paid and unattractive so it’s hard to staff, sell it off in pieces to profit making enterprises, remove social care to overwhelm it.

This isn’t news, vote Tory, get Tory.

Shouldn't that always be the case though?

Surely then , from comments by nhs staff on here, the issue needs to be bed building at the other end?
We need some kind of Half way units for people fit enough to leave hospital to be immediately discharged when available to free up those beds .
This must be a cheaper plan than building more hospital beds as no need for such specialised equipment or staff. Carers could look after more people in one place than driving from house to house .
Yes I know there is no money or staff but if there was a bit of money this must be the most effective use ?

Never heard of it before but a quick google and your right, what the fuck do they do? just a quango.

Of course they do serve a purpose, makes the Govt look like they are doing something, they were first introduced in 2012 under Cameron, at the same time he started cutting nhs funding.

Ambulance took 2.5 hours to get to us when my brother was found unresponsive. My dad and husband gave him CPR in turns the whole time. He died before the ambulance came. He was 29. The system is fucked beyond repair.

First aid training I’ve done recently stressed calling an ambulance and not dealing with emergencies yourself, as you could hurt someone more on moving them or they deteriorate in the car. No way would I do stick to this though with current wait times

In 2021/22 Healthwatch network received total funding of £25.4 million

How many other "health and social care" groups are being funded like this by the government??

Barely anyone has ever heard of them ffs.

Such a waste 😢

This covering your arse (111 also do this a tonne) is part of the reason as well.

^ that is logical but it’s then an acceptance of a broken system: not a vote winner

Agree that part of the issue is that social care is broken

The ambulances are parked in front of hospitals with the last patient they picked up waiting inside because the hospitals have no beds for them and no staff to treat them, because of chronic underfunding.

Private ambulance services already exist covering frontline 999, but they simple slot in with the NHS ambulances and are used by CCC (ambulance control) like any other resource, including being accessed via 999 and getting stuck outside hospital.

My understanding is that there is a private jewish ambulance service in London with paramedics providing emergency cover to just their community (paid up members I assume). But I'm not in London, so no idea of the details.

So potentially the rich could have their own service, but they'd still need access to the NHS for 24 cath labs, Major trauma centres, and in much of the UK outside of major cities there is currently very little provision for private healthcare, let alone 24 hour acute medical and trauma care.

We already have an American system. My eldest son spent 16 months in a private hospital at a cost of 12k a week - all paid for by the CCG & he ended up there because of lack of community provision. The first thing his consultant said to me on meeting was ‘he doesn’t need to be here’.

He has complex needs. If we want to arrange a blood test it needs 3 different organisations to organise one. There is no such thing as the NHS and there hadn’t been for a long time. Okay the organisations we have to try and coordinate are not for profit, but they buy and sell from each other and can’t actually talk to each other. It took 4 months to arrange an urgent blood test once and that was with me constantly following up and eventually cc-ing the MP into a complaint.

The NHS has already been sold off - the consequences are just impacting a larger number of people now as social care collapses.

Oh and absolutely anyone saying ‘I can’t vote Labour/ lib dem/ green/ MRLP though because they don’t know what a woman is’ can fuck off to the far side of fuck.

I’m massively gender critical, but if trans people are more of a threat to you than a government that’s literally murdering people in their sick beds RIGHT NOW, you need to give yourself a very very hard stare.

Hold your fucking nose and get the tories out. We can deal with gender and the problems around female only sports/ spaces and the madness surrounding that debate as soon as we’ve got the basics right. If you think the first thing Labour will do is anything to do with gender when the rest of the country is on fire you’re absolutely mental.

Dont gaslight others!

I'm glad your daughter was seen to promptly.

But many many other emergencies aren't...

Just last week I was in a cafe when an older lady collapsed, unconscious... She was resuscitated. As there was an off duty clinician... We phoned 999,we were told to call a taxi as no ambulance for at least 6 hours.

No taxi would take her the 30 kins to nearest ED.

This woman had history if cardiac arrests.

Yes it is the GPs. Probably not the GPs themselves, but certainly the GP system.

There seems so many inefficiencies there. Why, for example when I have an earache doe the receptionist insist on booking a telephone appointment only for the GP to say they need to look in my ear?

Why do I need to see a GP to get a fairly obvious referral? Physio for example (I know you don't everywhere, but you do here)

I mostly agree with this post!!

The person on the phone asks you questions, and decides on the points for your symptoms. If they don't understand your condition, and what symptoms effect you. They just carry on talking and expect you to keep on talking. Or say they will ring the next day. They make judgements on symptom's what a average person will get. If you have a unusual medical history you have to make your own way there and beg to be admitted. And hope some one with knowledge will admit you. Its impossible to talk if your turning blue, and need oxygen.

We need some kind of Half way units for people fit enough to leave hospital to be immediately discharged when available to free up those beds.

I think what you are referring to are community hospitals. They shut half of the ones in my region in 2013.

I'm in Cornwall where there were 30 ambulances waiting to discharge patients outside RCH. There was a Dr whose husband ended up driving her to London, an elderly man who slipped and broke his hip and waited 15 hours for an ambulance, family had to cover him up with tarpaulins overnight to keep beddin

There’s no staff for a hospital waiting facility.

I haven’t looked in detail at the earn more of lose your universal credit bit in the budget yesterday (did it happen? I saw it was forewarned). Can’t help thinking that could decimate social care even more as all the people doing 15 hours a week around children can no longer afford to do it.