There is no ambulance service anymore

Agreed, it’s worth pointing out ambulances are the slower route to hospital for most patients. Misuse does happen, although obvs not the only cause. I do wonder how many dial 999 as they don’t want to pay for parking, although no one would admit it.

My dear neighbours called one for a bee sting in the summer, waited five hours, then gave up and went to bed. The hospital is a ten minute drive away. Why didn’t they drive? I suspect the driver was over the limit, and an ambulance is more convenient than a cab.

And yes, 111 being so over cautious doesn't help. They have sent one to my house 3 times in the last year. Non actually needed a ambulance.

There's Urgent Care and Walk-ins here too, and yes people do phone an ambulance when it's not needed, but they are not the reason the ambulance service (and NHS in general) is on its knees.

Read the thread. This is not the cause of the crisis in the ambulance service. Much as the government might want you to believe that as they asset strip the country.

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. That would solve the ambulance problem immediately.

Aside from the question of who is going to staff this waiting area, paramedics have clinically responsibility for their patient until they hand over to the medical team. They can’t just dump the patient at a random bed space and bugger off.

I can’t recall if my neighbour was Cat 1 or Cat 2 but I was told to send someone for a defib. She was going downhill and it was a known condition where her heart does stop. I’ve sat with her many times for hours. Calling back as she worsens. Each time her stay in hospital is longer as she’s not got there quickly enough.

Ive also queued for around 10 minutes just to get through to 999 for both ambulance and police on many occasions in the last year.

The ambulance service will make an assessment whether to send an ambulance or not. I rang an ambulance once for an elderly lady who fell in the street and hit her head. They said she didn’t need an ambulance and could go to hospital in a taxi. (Fair enough).

@EgonsShell so genuinely what do you think is happening to cause this ?

I once rang 111 at about 4pm about my 3 year old who had been vomiting since the previous evening and he wasn’t even keeping down water. He wasn’t passing urine either and was very lethargic.

I didn’t want to take him to A&E unnecessarily as it wasn’t an emergency so I called 111. The lady who answered the phone said because of his age and symptoms she would refer his details to the doctor who would call me back within the hour.

So I waited, and waited and waited….

Meanwhile my son was still being sick.

After over 2 hours of waiting (despite me having rang 111 back to chase up the doctor’s phone call) I took him to A&E because I felt I had no other choice. It was about 7pm by this point and when he was triaged I was told there would be a 7 hour wait until he would be seen by a doctor.

In triage his sugars were low (2.2) and so they gave me some dioralyte and told me to give him 10mls every 10 minutes which thankfully he was able to tolerate. He was called back into the triage room just over two hours later and because his sugars had risen a little the nurse said that if he were her child then she’d just take him home rather than sit waiting to see a doctor for another 5 hours. So that’s what I did.

The 111 doctor did eventually call….at 2.30am in the morning, so 10.5 hours after I had initially phoned.

When I had been in A&E the place was absolutely crammed with what seemed to be children who were generally ok (running around, playing, chatting away to their parents etc) and I imagine a lot of them were there for the same reason I was : because GPs just aren’t available to advise on minor illnesses.

The whole system is a mess.

We have a care home at the end of our road. Ambulances arrive there all blue lights and sirens on a fairly regular basis.

During DH's final illness (at the height of covid) I had to call ambulances, on GP's instructions, several times. They often weren't impressed that GP had issued the instruction rather than dealing with it himself, but we never waited more than an hour. DH was bedbound and I couldn't get him to hospital myself. In most cases they didn't take him in anyway.

Also 111 are too keen on saying you need an ambulance or A and E, again speaking from experience, i think if they calmed the fuck down and stopped referring non emergencies then it would ease the strain on the paramedics

You re really not getting it are you?

There is simply not enough people in the UK with anything like the skills needed, they've left! and my DD will soon be another leaving the NHS.. good.

As for "no party good enough" what a load of crap, you lot deserve what is happening to the UK, you ve no idea how Labour would perform in Govt but still you keep with the mantra "oh they re all the same"

12 years in and the Cons have wrecked the NHS.

So, no they are not all the same!!!

@OLP2019 If you read the whole thread you will see that some people have already answered this for you.

The op is not scaremongering. The system is broken and she's right to want people to understand this. Especially anyone who thinks that tax/NI cutting Liz Truss and her cronies will do anything about it.

My 90 year old MIL waited 17 hours for an ambulance a week ago. We couldn't drive her as she's too frail and has congestive heart failure. It was her GP who called for an ambulance. Two years ago she fell and broke her hip. That was an 11 hour wait.

We do live fairly rurally and 25 mins from the nearest hospital, but I have a friend who lives in London, 10 mins from a major hospital, who waited 8 hours for an ambulance for her seriously ill mother.

The issue now is that and ambulance doesn't just turn up, put you on a stretcher and take you to hospital. Twice in a week an ambulance has been called to an elderly neighbour and that ambulance was outside for 2 hours both times. Yes that's 2HOURS. Yes there is an an obvious need for something to change but also should be looking at why the ambulances are taking taking long at patients houses

I've heard multiple positive stories recently from patients who've had quick/normal response times from ambulances in our local trust.

It's naive and hopeful to suggest that ambulance delays are caused solely by misuse.

My friend's husband had a cardiac arrest five years ago and rang 999. She was told there are no ambulances, nearest is 40 mins away (we are not rural).


Last year my mum collapsed. Called 999 and we were put on hold. Not even able to speak to an operator. I had no idea that was possible. Waited almost eight hours.

I really hope people consider what a conservative government has done to our public services when there's the next election.

The mini budget is just worse, only real benefit is to those earning over 150k and less money for public services.

Agreed.

If you can possibly get yourself to hospital, do so. My dear friend died of a heart attack because the ambulance took two hours to get to her. Her poor son was doing cpr with her the whole time, but it was too late by the time they showed up.

A woman a few streets away died a few weeks ago.

Phoned an ambulance and said she needed one soon or she would die.

They arrived 10 hours later and she was dead.

Its the overstretching of the hospitals that are causing the the collapse of the ambulance system though.

My mum is in a care home for her dementia, she also suffers with fits and when she suffers several in a short time they call an ambulance, ambulance comes after varying wait times and they usually want to take her into hospital. I met her there after the most recent visit. She was still on the ambulance waiting to get into A and E. She was in a queue of ambulances all waiting to handover their patients. She waited on that ambulance for 8 hours just to get into the building, then she waited a further few hours to be seen. That’s 8 hours of an ambulance and 2 paramedics off the road.

The most annoying thing was that all they ever do in the hospital is do some blood tests, tweak her meds and send her back. They never do any detailed exploration of what is causing them. I hate it when they take her in.

They absolutely don't, believe me.

My point is that lots of people do not and if they knew that they could sometimes make other arrangements and this could save lives.

If you want to dismiss my experience and the similar experiences of other posters on this thread go ahead.

The problem is, I think op that the title of your thread is silly and over dramatic.
"There is no ambulance service" was written for shock and drama.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with your dd, other people had much better experiences which is great. Their experiences aren't dismissing yours they're just creating a rounded picture.

The ambulance service very much exist, work hard under intense pressure and often do an amazing job but they are stretched to their limit and can't see everybody so advice to avoid calling one unless essential is useful.

Only this morning I saw a post from somebody on here advising that an ambulance needed to be called for a drunk teen. We really need to lose this mindset.

Take away from this seems to be if you can get to the hospital then you should