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.

@Gensola heartbroken that this has happened to you

Thanks for posting OP and I'm so sorry you went through that. I think our deteriorating healthcare is something we need to be talking about more.

I've not been in that situation but have had some scary experiences as a parent over the past year when my 2 and 3 year old DD has been very ill and the wait to access healthcare was atrocious. I believe you.

I also think we talk too much about the NHS as if it is one national identity. In reality, access to healthcare varies from region to region based on the commissioning group (if they are still called that).

I disagree, we are really well staffed at the moment, with a fairly new inexperienced workforce, as they keep recruiting, and it makes no difference, more ambulances would just mean more vehicles waiting outside A&E, and we have long since run out of parking spaces.
Pay social carers properly, give them the respect they deserve, discharge patients from hospital, releasing the back log of bed blocking patients in order to release the back log of "lodger" patients in A&E, to then release the ambulances from outside, so that we can do the job we are trained and employed to do
@EgonSpengler2020
good post ,especially giving carers the respect they deserve .I was dismayed to hear the BBC saying that if carers pay were to be raised then those who currently opted for "working in retail and for Amazon" would divert to care work .

Yes, you're right. We live London borders and it's no end of aggravation at times with ambulances.

I'm not blaming the staff, they are always lovely (my DH has underlying health conditions, we need sometimes 999 help). I've been told to just dial 999, and not try any other method.

But, A&E are overwhelmed with people who really need to just see a GP, face to face. But they can't, so they rock up at hospital.

Plus, they have a huge amount of "bed blockers" - elderly people who need care at home, or a care home, for discharge.

But, social care is in chaos, and yesterday they cancelled the extra money they were going to use to improve it.

The system needs urgent reform, but it won't happen under this government.😡

I hope you all have plans for your elderly parents because the days of assuming there will be a dom care service you can buy in have gone.

When I went to work the other day there were 19 ambulances queuing up to drop off. When I finished my shift there were ‘just’ 14 queuing.

They will always prioritise a baby or child over an adult. And as for the elderly, well you can forget them all together. I know if my elderly mum has a bad fall, she will not get an ambulance. And as I live 3 hours away, she will probably die. Her only help nearby are similar aged family members. My only hope is she moves to sheltered housing where she might stand more of a chance.

We have to do our best to stay as healthy possible and take as few a risks as possible, if we want to survive. There’s just too many people out there and not enough resources to go around.

@Snog thank you 💔

The not enough resources to go round are a choice by the government. The causes of the crisis are well understood - no great mystery to solve. They just choose not to and instead give tax cuts to the richest.

@walkingonsunshinekat most peolle havent heard of them. They get a very good salary for doing sweet f all....The Healthwatch team have absolutely no impact on anything. Because they just reiterate Care Opinion, Daily Mail Fodder, BBC / Panaroma investigations and the CQC.

What else is the government funding like this? Ugh

Yup, just read your post @Theroadislong and earlier was reading on msn that us Boomers might have to start paying again for prescriptions.
Can't help feeling that death is just being wished upon us. :-(

Indeed. We used to have these - community & cottage hospitals where people would go to rehab before living independently again in their own homes.

my neighbour came home yesterday after 5 weeks in hospital. 3 weeks of that was waiting for a care package - there are no carers you see.

@DickDarstedly it is true. Am sharing because the London ambulance service did send an ambulance: so the triage system is not the best and some people (like neighbour) are sophisticated enough to ham up symptoms and call repeatedly and get dispatch to categorise them as needing an ambulance. Am sharing because I am absolutely furious that there are people out there diverting resources from where they are needed. Am sharing because me, experiencing that (we live in a terrace so what goes on next door is a shared experience), means that I am passionate about educating the public about appropriate use of limited resources.

I work for the NHS in a band 9 role so I do have more than a passing interest in public health and the resourcing crisis.

Paramedics start on £13.84 an hour. It isn't just beds numbers or the amount of ambulances but the whole bloody thing that is underfunded. Nurses also start on the same band. The NHS will be left to rot before it's privatised.

@Sothis but you will always get these people, they aren't new. Just like people who waste police time by confessing to crimes or complaining about neighbours hedge.

You don't need to educate anyone, after all who wants to sit in a&e for hours when they don't need too?

Yup, just read your post @Theroadislong and earlier was reading on msn that us Boomers might have to start paying again for prescriptions.

I think that's fair enough, how else is it sustainable? They will be uproar but then do people want the NHS?

I agree with @Devilishpyjamas
ambulances are taken up by social care people as are most of the beds in hospitals .
my friend works in the community and a few of her clients are having falls and the spending weeks in hospital then sent home alone again, having falls . Ambulance / hospital/ repeat .

Not surprised by this at all.

This is the output of systemic underfunding for the NHS over 12 years

I hope you all have plans for your elderly parents because the days of assuming there will be a dom care service you can buy in have gone.

Why won't they have made their own plans?

Yup.

I agree op. I don't think that is scaremongering. This happened in my family too. Resulted in 9 days in intensive care because appropriate treatment was so delayed.

I agree @Devilishpyjamas a choice by the government to not spend it on healthcare.
This will not change, but only get worse.
It is very depressing, and angers me as we pay a huge amount of our( average) wages into a service which is now inaccessible.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hopeless and despondent about the future.

Because you can‘t book a Dom care service in advance.

I am talking about not being able to even buy in a service because there isn’t one to buy. As I said before care organisations are handing back contracts because there are no staff.

@Whatsyournameandwheredyoucomefrom your analysis is spot on about where the blockages are in the system.

Thing is in each case, with a tiny bit more structure and funding, many of these problems could be solved so they never become an A and E case. As you say, with older 75plus patients who are not actually urgent but too risky to leave, a GP home visit would work, plus we used to have a falls service in a car round her which would visit and assess old people who had fallen, many of whom need picking up rather than heaps of medical intervention, they were also then able to give painkillers on the spot rather than waiting, and triage those most urgently needing to go in the ambulance. This was stopped, and now people who are basically ok but have just fallen over and can't get up again (or carers don't want to risk it) have to have the full ambulance service to right them.

Frequent fliers- there have been a few initiatives where one member of staff is dedicated to frequent fliers and offering social intervention, this more than pays for itself as these people often have social or mental health issues that keep them ringing A and E/999 when in fact what they need is alternative health. Again, though this requires funding to set up and run, should be everywhere across nation.

Finally the social care issue has been neglected and unsolved by successive governments and now this is coming home to roost. Even with better pay, there are so many issues with it. I prefer a social insurance model for this, separate to the NHS, but we have been so slow to act, the blockages this are causing are now legion. This is on politicians' heads.

All these problems are solvable, it's just it's easier to try to guilt the population not to call 999 or ask for an ambulance to 'waste' resources, but how are they supposed to make these decisions if 111 is over cautious themselves?

Surely there will always be a service if you can pay enough? Absolutely people will have to get used to the idea that it needs to be more than minimum wage though.