Been waiting 12hrs for an ambulance

[Riggsisadino]

I know it's all in the news but ambulance wait times are ridiculous and I know it's mainly due to people in a&e not being moved onto a ward and ambulances not being able to move into a&e.
I am currently with someone with a dislocated hip and shoulder and we gave been waiting 12hrs. The pain is getting unbearable and I am struggling to reassure and calm and know what to do. They are saying that they have people in same catogory waiting longer to.
I feel bad for the person I'm with but can't help to think people who aren't sat inside or are on there own. I don't know what the answer is but something neeeds to change

Hardly surprising though is it? 57 yo female carer, trying to lift 12st gentlemen off the floor.
Or shall she give it go and end up off work with a bad back?

Even with a double up, lifting patients is bloody hard work, not that you'd now.

There aren't enough GPs as it is and handing out anti biotics when not sure of the cause or type of infection is stupid, nursing homes are not hospitals.

Falls teams are common place.

I work for ambulance service, I know it's no consolation but we find these jobs (fall on floor ?hip fracture) so sad - they typically code low (cat3) so we just can't get to them, we'll see the detail and be allocated but keep getting diverted to other jobs on the way.

They're a perfect ambulance job - broken leg or hip + frail and it would be extremely difficult to make own way to hospital even with a lot of family help. We can arrive on an ambulance, stabilise the injury, decent analgesia, equipment to lift out the house and stretcher to hospital - much better.

But on the way to that job we'll typically diverted to any multitude of other jobs which could of easily making their own way to hospital with absolutely no detriment or difficulty - i.e. child with fever, abdominal pain 6 days, back pain 5 years - all often end up coding as cat 2 and you arrive at a house with the patient easily mobile, family there with car on driveway, patient requiring absolutely no emergency treatment, by all means they may need an A&E work up to diagnose what's up but they didn't require any treatment or specialist transport to get there - a regular taxi would have performed exactly the same function.

Hopefully they're at hospital now, but it's worth noting that everytime you call up for an eta it can end up being coded as a new job - so now they've not been waiting 12 hours, it's a brand new job only been on the stack for 2 minutes (as old job taken off/cancelled and new call put in) and behind all the other jobs- I work an an EOC at times and it's just something that happens. It also takes up a call taker - often so many calls it can take a few minutes to speak to someone now. It really is in everyones best interests to only call back if something worsens, if it's just for an eta/to say the ambulance hasn't arrived yet you're probably only going to delay the response further by calling to complain.

Perhaps I didnt phrase the question properly

I asked how an insurance system would help with ambulance waits caused by a social and elderly care failure?

Given that social and elderly care is already mostly private?

European countries are struggling with social and elderly care. They are also struggling with lack of staff. Lack of health and social care staff is a global problem.

However complete mismanagement and horrific under funding of the NHS mean we are facing worse problems than other countries

The answer isn't a European insurance model.

The answer is correct funding and staffing

Easy. If you can't afford insurance you're bottom of the queue and die so there's less competition for the people who can afford it.

That's what we pretty much did with covid - let the most vulnerable die and let everyone else look after themselves.

111 once insisted on sending an ambulance for something that definitely was not ambulance worthy , ridiculous system.

@girlmom21

That's not my recollection of covid management.

In fact, at least some of the problems we're seeing now are a direct result of the covid only (protecting the vulnerable) focus.

You don't remember them sending covid-positive patients back to care homes?

I hope people remember these threads when it comes to voting at the next General Election.

I do.

But thats a different thing to what you said.

Even that is now impacting on the nhs as people are so reluctant to go into nh amd are insisting on care at home.

Part of that is also a cost factor.

@plasticdragon

People who vote tory don't think the tories are to blame.

So it won't make much difference

Mangar Emergency Lifting cushion. About £1000 or may be available through your local social services after an assessment

100% spot on. I work as a Nurse Practitioner for an Urgent Care Response Team in a major city and this is the biggest problem we face. I often have to send people into hospital who could be treated at home simply because I cannot put a social care package in place. At Christmas we had a contract with a local care provider, they shut their books to us shortly after and will now only take referrals from patients already in hospital, we also have an in house NHS team of HCAs but they are always at capacity. Why would anybody want to be a home carer? Crap pay, crap hours and not the nicest of jobs at times, supermarkets pay more.

People who vote tory don't think the tories are to blame.

After 12 years of Tory leadership, I'd be interested in who they do blame!

Are people told the estimated wait time when they call for an ambulance? I am just wondering whether some people - such as the person with the infected toe upthread - might choose to find someone to drive them or call gp instead if they know how long they'll wait.

I do think some people abuse A&E and call ambulances unnecessarily, because they are free at point of use. I know it's unthinkable to many but maybe people would think twice if there was a charge involved.

Yes the visa issue will help presumably as it’s HCP staff that are needed.

One reason I preferred Sunak way back when was that unlike the other parties and some in his own party he wanted the NI increase for social care. I’m not sure if this has now been reversed.

I don't believe you.

There is no evidence to suggest the number of people doing that is any larger than it ever was.

I hope the ambulance has turned up, OP. I was at our local, major hospital A&E at the weekend (made my own way there). Wait time was reasonable, there were plenty of staff, but the car park full of waiting ambulances and people on beds in corridors. One of the nurses was saying they have a large number of Covid patients, there was a notice saying there was a 50 hour wait for a bed. There aren’t enough beds.

@plasticdragon

Nhs staff and the general public

You don't believe me @scaredoff!? I don't particularly care tbh, I work 13 hour shifts in a UTC and I know damn well what cases come through our doors! How about the lass we had yesterday who had a cosmetic procedure and came because she didn't like the results?! Or the woman who came as her cold was not going after 5 days?!?
UTC are a step down from A&E, we are staffed by ANPs and have no scanning facilities on site, and only X-ray above 5 years old. The system is used badly and I am certainly Not saying it is the sole point of the people who use it, but we used to have more responsibility for our health which is now lessoning. On top of the difficulty discharging patients and the lack of finances and yes, it makes a difference.

An absolute maelstrom of reasons- Brexit is a biggie- my friend in her 70s (RIP) had terminal care from 3 lovely Lithuanian young women- now all back home as they didn't fit the 'earnings' criteria to remain and didn't feel welcome in that part of Kent.

Far too many supersize hospitals a whopping distance from large communities. Here in Windsor we have 3 planned care hospitals all within 10 minutes , 2 state and 1 private, but the A&E is at least 20 to 25 minutes drive away and covers an enormous area, Windsor, Slough, Marlow, Maidenhead etc and is really a bit grim. So of course you have too many people all trying to access the same A&E. My personal view is that we need a small cottage hospital in every town of reasonable size that can deal with an A&E situation, breaks, falls, car accidents, heart attacks, strokes - stabilize people if possible and then move to a larger more specialist centre if needed. Other country's do have this. The problem here is the country went down the Brexit route, spaff Ed £400 billion on this for a minus 4% on GDP and now hasn't got the financial clout. 350 million extra a week for the NHS anyone??? They sold you a pup

Then as others have said, housing for older people, there are some really good over 55 developments (flats) but the vast majority are to buy or part buy and not cheap meaning that anyone without significant assets can't access them so stay stuck in their council house/private rented etc - and stuck in hospital as no appropriate care on hand -

The country needs to get a grip- accept Brexit was a terrible idea that's benefitted a few low paid workers in private sector due to staff shortages (HGV, warehousecetc) and some tradesmen who are now back to charging people rip off prices - and of course some well off people busy hiding their assets offshore without EU scrutiny.
We need to look seriously at housing and build socially funded care based communities for over 60s , based on social levels of rent . Not everyone will want or need it- but plenty will.
We need to pay caring roles better and give people skills and training that make them feel valued.

I do think we need to find the NHS differently and it become a ringfenced insurance based system at sensible levels - more like Germany/Netherlands etc- if you are in receipt of certain benefits then you don't pay. Consequently I then think NI should come down. We then need to ramp up facilities in some of the private hospitals- many of which are underused.

To be frank I think it needs a complete reset! It's drifted into kind of a second rate USA in many areas and become dog eat dog.

This. 👆🏽
Someone I know worked in the marketing department of our local hospital. Their first job in the NHS. They were gobsmacked at the lack of work ethic and sickness absence piss taking, which no one in the private sector would tolerate. She was also on a higher salary than the nursing staff.

A parent of one of my colleagues is an anaesthetist. At the start of covid they were told to go and work in the maternity unit, in an unrelated role, despite having no relevant experience or skills. No reason given, and no reassurance that if anything went wrong it wouldn't be on their shoulders, so they went off sick.

A cardiac rehab sister was sent to work in intensive care, a department she hadn't been near since she was a student, and with no chance to continue helping her then current patients. As a result, she left her role and now works outside the NHS.

To me as an outsider these examples seem ludicrous.

Other friends with 25+ years of nursing experience, say that bullying is rife, their fear of people making frivolous compensation claims gives them anxiety to the point they're paralysed by it. No amount of money will sort that out.

We really really need to stop viewing using acute NHS hospital beds as the answer to the lack of social care.

This goes to nhs managers, to gps, to crisis teams

To members of the public who complain about mhs waiting times but who also fudge the system to avoid care home fees and won't look after their relatives

@RosesAndHellebores Where do you suggest people start to pay?

There are a finite number of dental and optical problems that are dealt with by the private sector - who then promptly throw it back to the NHS.

I was refused private health care by my company's occupational health provider because I have pre-existing conditions so I'm not convinced that private health care is the way to go - too many people will fall through the cracks.

Personally, I feel that if the NHS is to survive then NI will have to increase....and then we'll have to address the issue of pensions.......

A taxi or lift to hospital.
Ambulances are surely for life saving things or really serious injuries?

Completely agree.

How does it work in reality. Do staff call a patient’s nok and they say no?

I realise so far we have little experience of this (touch wood)