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.

@karmalama yep. But that needs funding.

Every single paramedic I've encountered seems like a bloody angel and I want to hug and kiss all the NHS staff who continue to work in the current environment. I have nothing but praise for them as individuals.

But I agree with OP. If you still believe that, if the worst comes to worst, you can dial 999 and get timely help, you are mistaken.

The same thing happened to me last year. In the middle of the night 111 called an ambulance for my DH. After waiting for some hours, the ambulance service called me and told me they couldn't come. Thankfully I was able to get him to A&E myself.

When I needed urgent help with my son over summer, I didn't bother calling an ambulance.

Aren't all the boomers property rich, so they'll have to fund their own care and pay whatever it takes, which yes, will be more than minimum wage.

I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, I know they're not all sorting on property fortunes, but lots are. We do need to get over the idea that the state should pay what are essentially living costs, in order that parents can pass on unearned property gains to children.

The government narrative of ‘everyone needs to earn more or we will penalise you’ won’t exactly encourage people into the sector either.

I had some hope that Johnson’s government would do something when it became blatantly obvious that social care had collapsed. But Truss won’t. The government is now run by a bunch of ideologues - they don’t care about evidence or the reality of people‘s lives. They just have an ideology they have been waiting a long time to enact.

and then you get the 12 hour wait at A&E! The ambulances are just one half of the story here.

Social care is more than elder care. My son has 24 hour 2:1 care in his own home. And there are plenty of other young adults like him who need support. The social care discussions often entirely ignore people like him.

Ambulances don't always come for life threatening events either. With my son, over summer, his life was in danger and in other times an ambulance would have been absolutely the eighth choice, to get medical help to him in minutes. But I know now that the fastest way to get him medical help is to take him to A&E myself, not wait around for an ambulance.

Yes it is. DH needed care in his 50s, but it is the elderly that have, on the whole, created the crisis.

Apologies wrong thread🤷🏻‍♀️will report.

As others have said. The social care system is broken, not the Ambulance Service. I work in continuing health care. There is no money and there are no staff to provide the assessments let alone provide the ongoing care once they leave hospital. So the upshot is they either don't leave and clog up the system from the end point. Or they leave without the correct care in place and quickly re-enter again via emergency services / starting point. If more investment and thought was put into providing adequate social care and continuing health care the pressure on the NHS would reduce drastically.

I don't understand why inheritance is such a contentious issue. And don't give me the tax has already been paid line because it hasn't in most cases. No tax has been paid on the property gains my parents or thousands like them, have made.

Well it definitely contributes to huge inequality, one of my uni friends inherited about 500k in the 00s & now they just bought a 2m house. I have other friends who earn similar but still rent as they haven't had any inheritance. But IHT is the most hated tax.

@KarmaComma

Thankfully most with a functioning brain know the fastest way to get to hospital to to take that person yourself.

It's a shame that people like the OP lead to situations like you had to suffer with when actually in need of one!

Completely agree - you must make your own arrangements now.

If you watch the ambulance/999 documentaries you can see what's happening in action. Especially if you contrast today's series with the first ones from about 2012. There have always been problems but it's much worse now.

Inappropriate call outs whether from members of the public or 111 are not a large issue, the issue is bottlenecks at hospitals and insufficient resources. An inappropriate call out will take up very little time - less than the time taken for an actual urgent job. (Less so the mental health frequent callers - but I understand in some areas a dedicated mental health car is being sent to these calls, to relieve ambulance crews for other jobs).

We need more social care places and we need more capacity in hospitals. Probably more ambulances/ambulance staff, too, but the queueing is crippling. Those crews could have dealt with two, three, maybe even half a dozen jobs in the time it takes to queue at A&E. Paying highly trained, skilled, probably frustrated to hell ambulance staff, to wait around for hours in a queue! (I am not saying that they shouldn't be paid. But that they shouldn't be stuck waiting around.)

YANBU. We have unfortunately had to call an ambulance out a number of times over the past few months as my partner had multiple surgeries for his cancer and suffered nemerous complications.

One night he developed an infection in his wound and started bleeding profoundly . After calling 999 It took 10 minutes just to get through to an operator, the queue was so busy! I was told to put pressure on the wound until an ambulance came. The ambulance came 7 hours later. Luckily the bleeding had stopped of its own accord by this point. Still ended in a hospital stay for the infection.

We also called an ambulance when he developed pain after one of his ops. The ambulance took 5 hours to arrive, misdiagnosed hum with pancreatitis (he had an infected gallbladder which later progressed to sepsis) and the paramedic told us that the ambulance service is currently so busy that we should call AN UBER in case of any further complications and it would likely get him to hospital sooner!!!!!

It's not just this England either. My great uncle, who lived in Wales (note 'lived') suffered a heart attack and waited 9 hours for an ambulance back in Feb.

So yep, 5-10 hour waits are the norm ATM. Just getting through to anyone when you call 999 can take 10 mins or more 🫤. If you have anything absolutely immediately life threatening you are fucked.

One of my kids has an allergy and I live in fear of her suffering anaphylaxis. I remember my mum having an anaphylactic reaction years ago - her tongue swelling to block her airways in seconds!. The ambulance was there in 2 minutes. Today, she would not make it.

All these people on the thread saying this is scare mongering need a wake up call. This is what is happening.

@billy1966 wrong thread?

Well, yes, I agree that the NHS has been wrecked.

You say the best people have left, well this is to my point that creativity is needed. I don't believe we lack the talent but it needs different solutions. Even on this thread people are dismissive of others ideas eather

I was actually told this by nurses who saved my 2 week olds life with blocked airways from mucus and vomit.

Thankfulky we are 1 minute to the local hospital who weren’t equipped for paeds but did scramble about and managed to pull us through. Turns out our ambulances are actually cut and our area doesn’t even have any so it’s not a technicality. It’s physically impossible and they know it.

Took over an hour and a half for a transfer with medical professionals escalating and escalating to the point they had to pretend he was having another event for them to even bother. A 2 week old!!!

I will never forget holding him in my arms as he turned blue and was giving up fighting. I could have got to London in that time it took them to turn up.

I have not RTFT but pointing to growing problems in the ambulance services (it's not one thing, different NHS Trusts provide services in different areas) is not scaremongering. I am involved (in a professional capacity) in cases in which the ambulance service is being sued for failing to arrive in time leading to avoidable death.

*rather than exploring them.

I live near the channel tunnel and M20 God help us if there a accident or a terrorist attack
All our emergency services are stretched as it is

What else are they funding?
Well here's a few of our local Trusts initiatives:

How about "workforce development" officers, mostly Band 7 but some Band 8. Do fuck all. Occasionally invite us to a learning forum. In our our own time at 9pm. Online. There will be pizza. 🙄

Research and development depts. That as far as I can see have yet to publish any research. Ever. In 4 years.

And best of all, our "Transformation team" who erm.......came round with ice lollies in the hot weather.

I'm sorry op but if you vote Tory you have no right to complain, this is what they do. I challenge anyone to name a single time the NHS has been in better shape when the Tories have left power than it was when they came to power. Or any public service for that matter.

Even the voter on a million pound a year who's just had a £55,000 tax cut thanks to the Tories should care about ambulances.

@LemonSwan how awful