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.

[Raddix]

@Octomore

I don’t know why hospitals can’t build a large waiting facility with rows of beds and nurses on duty, so the ambulances can drop the patient and go.

Because they wouldn't be able to staff it. Surely this is obvious?

When hospitals have no beds, they're no normally talking about physical beds. They're talking about having the staff to safely supervise the patients who would go in the beds. And those staff don't exist.

They are already staffing it! The “waiting facility” is rows of ambulances waiting outside the hospital with a patient in each one, and 2-3 staff per ambulance. It would be more cost effective to make a big waiting room full of beds so the ambulances could drop and go. It would also mean that people who were able to get themselves to hospital could do so instead of having to wait for an ambulance.

[Devilishpyjamas]

The paramedics are staffing the ambulances. Not nursing staff

[Devilishpyjamas]

Pickledeggnogg are you taking the piss? How the fuck would you have transported a 90 year old with a broken back to hospital?

[Raddix]

We never have, nor should we, fund an ambulance service for people who can get to hospital themselves
But ambulances aren’t just transport. They’re being used as waiting facilities. People are lying in an ambulance for 12 hours waiting to be admitted. Free up the ambulances by creating a separate waiting facility! Which doesn’t have to be staffed by nurses.

[LakieLady]

@Alexandra2001

People have always taken the piss with 999 and ambulances but we never had these issues in the NHS to anything like the same extent, it was an extreme rarity.

What has changed in recent years? EU citizens have gone back home.

When my mum had a stroke in 2016, the first responder was from ROI, the ambulance guys were both from eastern europe, in hospital she saw a Syrian stroke specialist, some of the nurses on the ward (she was there for 3 weeks) were from Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy.
Even back then, the EU nurses didn't like the brexit result and some had plans to leave.

My DD works in the same hospital, she tells me there are hardly any EU AHP's.

Loss of EU staff has definitely been a factor. I know someone who was a paramedic until recently, and his shift had lost 20% of their staff because of Brexit.

They've lost even more now as he and several colleagues have left to become assessors for PIP. Once trained, and after a year's service, they get nearly £50k a year, don't have to work shifts/weekends, deal with drunks or violent people, rarely get puked or bled on and don't have to attend horrific accidents.

But the biggest problem is logjammed A&E depts because of a lack of beds, caused by delayed discharges. And discharges are delayed, at least in part, by the shortage of social care staff to organise the post-discharge care package.

I've long held that adult social care should be merged with the NHS. At least then there would be an incentive to spend money on the stuff needed to discharge patients. When councils are doing it, they have other priorities that take resources so will never adequately fund care for people languishing in hospital. There's a perverse incentive to delay it, as it saves the council money.

[Devilishpyjamas]

I can tell you now I could not transport my 16 year old post seizure to hospital a) because I couldn’t move him when he was unconscious and b) because had he had another tonic clonic (he has had a series) then I wouldn’t have been able to drive and check his breathing.

You can’t actually believe that an ambulance service unable to transport people with broken backs or who are unconscious - because of a lack of workers in the social care sector - is a remotely acceptable state of affairs?

[Lancrelady80]

Mum is fiercely independent and as she is mentally with it and can manage at home generally without help, it is felt that she is better in her own home given that I'm only at the other end of the village, she has a neighbour who keeps a close eye on her and carers who come in twice a week. She'd give up if placed in any kind of home, and none of us could cope living together! The Careline was installed for exactly this kind of thing, and usually either myself or the neighbour would be able to get there within approx 10 mins. It has worked well in the past.

Unfortunately yesterday coincided with me on a training course so phone had to be off and not contactable at my usual place of work, and neighbour having an endoscopy so also not contactable. We have now added several more people to her emergency contacts list!

[Blueuggboots]

The issue in my area is that the Paramedics have to wait outside with their patient until there is room for them in A&E. This is instead of all the corridors in A&E being full of people in beds waiting to be triaged.

I AM a paramedic and now work in a different clinical setting because being a front line paramedic is physically and mentally knackering!!

111 sends ambulances to so many things unnecessarily - the downfall started when 111 began! You CANNOT assess someone accurately down the phone.

[Lancrelady80]

But ambulances aren’t just transport. They’re being used as waiting facilities. People are lying in an ambulance for 12 hours waiting to be admitted. Free up the ambulances by creating a separate waiting facility! Which doesn’t have to be staffed by nurses.

This is what needs to happen, but I do think there needs to be some sort of medical supervision there in case patients go downhill whilst waiting.

[DixonD]

You could have made your own way? It clearly wasn’t an “dying” emergency according to them.

[Wouldloveanother]

@Lancrelady80

Mum is fiercely independent and as she is mentally with it and can manage at home generally without help, it is felt that she is better in her own home given that I'm only at the other end of the village, she has a neighbour who keeps a close eye on her and carers who come in twice a week. She'd give up if placed in any kind of home, and none of us could cope living together! The Careline was installed for exactly this kind of thing, and usually either myself or the neighbour would be able to get there within approx 10 mins. It has worked well in the past.

Unfortunately yesterday coincided with me on a training course so phone had to be off and not contactable at my usual place of work, and neighbour having an endoscopy so also not contactable. We have now added several more people to her emergency contacts list!

It doesn’t sound like she’s ’fiercely independent’ it sounds like she’s too infirm and needs more support than she can get at home.

I have to be honest and say I do object to the enormous amount of NHS resources that are used by elderly people living in unsuitable situations.

They then tend to end up ‘bed blocking’ (I don’t like that term but there isn’t another) because the situation has reached a critical point where they can’t be sent home.

It’s much better to move into suitable accommodation before it reaches this point so they are settled and in supportive, familiar surroundings when things really hit the skids.

[Wouldloveanother]

Plus I hope your neighbour is happy with this degree of (unpaid) responsibility?

[Nat6999]

It's true, ds has waited up to 8 hours with exh when he has needed to be taken to hospital in the last few months, nothing trivial up to now, this year he has been admitted for suspected sepsis, covid where his oxygen levels were below 90% & a head injury, he has MS & a suprapubic catheter, has no immune system due to the disease modifying drugs he has been on.

[Devilishpyjamas]

Oh yes that unlimited supply of suitable accommodation. Why not shove everyone into a warehouse & have done with it?

God this thread is an eye opener.

[Lancrelady80]

With respect, you know none of the people involved. Neighbour has volunteered when it came clear Mum needed more help, so noone is being taken advantage of. We check in daily and I only work 10 mins away. Mum is fine unless she falls and then cannot get up - the reason for the Careline. She has been thoroughly assessed by the council, her bungalow is adapted and she was assessed again by the frailty team yesterday who were quite happy that she can cope with the support in place. In usual situations, the Careline would have acted in the same way as sheltered accommodation- someone there within just a few minutes. Yesterday was a terrible blip.

My point was that ambulance wait times are leaving patients who are vulnerable and may or may not have the levels of support that my mum has literally in danger of dying as they are being used as waiting rooms.

[2bazookas]

I know your post is not true.

DS regularly works a 13 hour shift in which he attends severely ill patients at home in response to 999 calls.

[Veeragall]

We don't pay enough for everything the NHS is supposed to do nowadays with a growing and ageing population. People in many other countries, eg Germany, pay more but get a better service. But that's not popular, especially with politicians who are only interested in short term gains.So they woo us with tax cuts, when we need the opposite.

[Lancrelady80]

"Some" ambulance services are being used as waiting rooms. Db is a paramedic elsewhere in the country, things are different depending on location. He's fed up of hanging around A&E too though. Your ds clearly works in area where it's not so bad. Lucky area. Doesn't mean other posters are making stuff up!

[Wouldloveanother]

@Lancrelady80

With respect, you know none of the people involved. Neighbour has volunteered when it came clear Mum needed more help, so noone is being taken advantage of. We check in daily and I only work 10 mins away. Mum is fine unless she falls and then cannot get up - the reason for the Careline. She has been thoroughly assessed by the council, her bungalow is adapted and she was assessed again by the frailty team yesterday who were quite happy that she can cope with the support in place. In usual situations, the Careline would have acted in the same way as sheltered accommodation- someone there within just a few minutes. Yesterday was a terrible blip.

My point was that ambulance wait times are leaving patients who are vulnerable and may or may not have the levels of support that my mum has literally in danger of dying as they are being used as waiting rooms.

I don’t know the people involved but I would just be mindful not to put too much pressure on the neighbour as your mum’s needs will no doubt increase over time.

My mum (who is a carer) agreed to be an emergency contact for one of our neighbours when we were kids. It went from helping out in the odd emergency, to regularly being summoned to help with shopping, cleaning, even personal care. It crept on over a few years so it didn’t look cheeky to start with, but eventually mum got fed up and refused to do any more. She never got so much as a box of chocolates to say thank you. I think it’s probably difficult to realise how much you’re asking if ‘it’s always been like this’, and maybe the fact my mum is a carer made this lady think it was more acceptable to expect unpaid help from her.

I find it very hard to believe that an 86 year old partially sighted diabetic with mobility issues is safe to live alone, but I guess the care team know more than me.

Just a word of warning though, elderly people tend to decline dramatically and in these scenarios it usually ends in a rushed move to an unfamiliar care home which is hugely traumatic for them (this happened to my grandparents). My granddad then declined very quickly and died. If they’d moved in a few years earlier he would’ve passed away in more familiar surroundings and in a more gentle manner.

[pickledeggnog]

@Devilishpyjamas

Pickledeggnogg are you taking the piss? How the fuck would you have transported a 90 year old with a broken back to hospital?

With great difficulty

I'm not saying it's easy

I'm also not saying it's possible in all situations

But the fact is that a broken back isn't a priority

So they will just have to wait if they can't get to hospital themselves

There needs to be some common sense applied when using NHS services, same applies to A&E

Can you get to hospital yourself? Yes

Are you having a cat 1 incident? No

Then go to hospital yourself

It's unfortunate that 111 are so risk adverse, and that actually adds to the problem, from what it sounds like an ambulance should have never been called in the OPs case, they were able to get to the hospital and it wasn't life threatening

[NorthernLights5]

I really recommended those who are able to volunteer as first responders. No it won't fix things but they are great. It's at least someone who is trained with the person in need who can provide reassurance, oxygen, dressings etc if needed and who can categorise the call if it hasn't been categorised properly. They can make a huge difference.

[LakieLady]

@Luxurysleuth007

I have friends in Shrewsbury whose 80 yr old parent with suspected stroke had to wait 6 hours for an ambulance and then 12 hours in A&E before they were seen properly. The NHS is screwed unfortunately.

It's not "unfortunate" that the NHS is screwed, it's deliberate. Years of chronic underfunding, understaffing because of failure to address recruitment and retention issues are political decisions.

This is no accident. If the Tories get in, their solution will be to privatise it and sell it off in bits and pieces.

[RedHelenB]

@Devilishpyjamas

Is a broken back for a 90 year old not urgent?

Not compared to a cardiac arrest, no. I'm not saying everything in hunky dory but I think there is too much sway with the ambulance service is no longer a thing.

[DontTrustThisPoster]

Not scaremongering at all, it genuinely is this bad. My husband was left waiting two hours with a ruptured gallbladder, no ambulances to be had. And my mother was collapsed on the floor with a blood clot, same thing, no ambulances.

[Onceinnever]

How can we genuinely believe it is acceptable to say that a broken back should not be a situation where you make your own way. No! This is not normal!


As I said before, watching my mother on the floor while I sat on hold to 999 and then waited for hours and hours for an ambulance to arrive.... It is crackers that this is the state of affairs and how willingly we are accepting this.