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

It’s not ideal but get help
to get in a car or taxi. Ambulances are for life and death. We use them like a taxi service in the U.K. because they’re free.

I think people are underestimating the agony of these injuries. It is completely unacceptable for people to wait in agony for hours. If there is going to be a wait someone should be going out with proper pain relief such as gas and air or morphine.

The problem of social care will really start hitting when the “ Baby boom” post War surge in births start getting in need of care..
Who will care for so many people with Dementia?

It’s frightening to think of .

@oakleaffy

Its hitting now.

Someone with a dislocated hip and shoulder should NOT be hoofing themselves into taxis. You can cause damage to nerves etc that can be permanent, and potentially compromise blood flow to the limb below.

Yes I understand about concentratting expertise, however they forgot to factor in capacity!

Depends which trust.

My trust doesn't, although it will give an average which is based on all areas within the trust and some areas are massively understaffed along with some of the longest waits at local EDs therefore waiting hours longer than the average given.

I'm a paramedic, trust me when I say we are at breaking point.
It's absolutely soul destroying waiting hours at an ED to offload, hearing the radio broadcasts for resources to cover an arrest or trauma or Doris with a #nof on the floor for 18 hours.
We cohort patients where we can, freeing up other ambulances, but that barely makes a dent.
There are no extra ED staff to cohort either, and even if there was, there's no space.

Our control room staff are beyond breaking point, many are simply walking out. They have to deal with the ring backs - the callers that are frantic that the person they called for 6 hours ago is now in cardiac arrest but it still won't expedite an ambulance as there are simply none available to send.
The abuse they receive is shocking.

Every facet of the NHS is broken and I can't see a way out or even a way back.
Winter pressures are upon us, which is ridiculous as we have been running at above and beyond capacity for months, years even.

Yes we had peaks each winter but this is something else. This has been a sustained endless peak.

Thank god for good will and black humour although that is steadily running out and the humour is taking a much darker turn into actual madness for some.

I have a paramedic friend - one of the biggest issues is hospital admission - they waited with a patient for an entire 12 hour shift, in the ambulance outside A+E, another crew then waited for their entire shift, they returned on their next shift and waited another 6 hours until the patient was admitted - 28 hours to admit one patient - hospitals are low on staff and beds - winter flu and Covid are not going to help.

Then there are the endless timewasters they are required to attend - it's so frustrating - I hope your ambulance arrived

I'm not an expert in medical issues in any way shape or form - but I have spent my fair share of time in A&E - mostly because of possible fractured ankles, a dog bite and my husband being diagnosed with a brain tumour - and I can confirm that this is still the case. When I was in minor injuries there were a plethora of people there waiting hours with seemingly nothing wrong with them. And given the amount of time they spent in the patient rooms, it would also seem there was nothing wrong with them that required serious medical treatment - for example, children being seen when they were running riot around the room (where as my dog bite did). Equally in A&E awaiting being seen for a possible fractured ankle, there were many people there seemingly with nothing wrong with them, though many with wrists bandaged up, some like me in a wheelchair because of my ankle. Some with elderly relatives because there is no where else to take them, and people worry, don't they?

Equally, my husband went in when he was experiencing severe headaches, had urinated himself without feeling it and had passed out at one point. The first time he was diagnosed with dehydration. The second time, he went in and he was literally grey, and the triage nurse was absolutely flabbergasted that he was in with a "headache". He was diagnosed with a brain tumour afterwards and I really wanted to find that nurse and scream at her (but I couldn't so I didn't). It took hours for him to be seen in the middle of the day, of course it's a first come first served thing at the time. We were in A&E at about 1.30pm. I have absolutely no concept of time of the day, but he was told of his diagnosis about 9.30pm and he had a bed at 11pm. Because of the fact there was no where else to put him, he took up a whole resus suite. There were people in corridors, there were people in ambulances, and this was before Covid. So many people in A&E were in and out in the time we waited to be seen. Not many of them had anything to show for the fact that they had been in A&E at all.

We've seen that the NHS is underfunded, but we owe them for his life, we won't stop campaigning for more funding for them, from a party that will actually fund them.

I was told it would be 14 hours for an ambulance when i called for my then 6week old daughter as she was crying and struggling to breath, was told its easier if I went to child A&E which I did, shocking.

Also if people want to see why ambulances take so long - watch Ambulance on BBC 1.

Agreed. The planned health budget for England in 2022/23 is £178.5 billion.

Yes - 4 hours trying to find out of hours mental health support for a suicidal patient - support services are non-existent

That is a very true picture of where we are. It's still only October so dread the coming months. A big thank you to you and your colleagues for sticking with it inspite of the hellish circumstances you have to work in.

The social care sector was shit on from a great height during the pandemic and underpaid, unappreciated burnt out care staff left.
A heck of a lot of us left.
Our home wasn't running at full staff capacity anyway but in the span of three months 1 manager, 2 housekeepers, 3 nurses, 4 carers, 2 kitchen assistants, and 5 (out of 9) head of care left (including me). Most of us left the sector. And that attitude of "min wage workers are 2 a penny" bit the sector on the bum.

this is one of knock on effects, because people in need of care have no where to go and end up overstaying in hospital wards.

It sounds awful alpha, and horrendously complicated and expensive to fix. Do you agree with pp who suggest that at least part of the problem is people using A&E for non-urgent care? Would it make a difference if such people could be turned away, dealt with robustly, charged?

A friend who works for CAMHS says they are overwhelmed because during triage parents lie and exaggerate their children's needs, knowing what they need to say to hit the threshold for support. But I am sympathetic to those parents because, if their child doesn't hit the threshold, there is nothing.

I'd always take a child to children's A&E as they are generally able to be carried. My DD had a broken ankle, completely non weight bearing so carried her. To be fair with smaller kids (smaller than a small adult so pre teen/less than a size 3 foot) I would now avoid Minor Injuries/UTC unless on the site of a hospital with a decent paediatric orthopaedics department after being unable to obtain a boot that fit (or have the fit properly assessed) without going to the kids' A&E at the Children's Hospital 2 days later (waste of resources for NHS as initial bandage, crutches and first attempt at a boot were all wasted, plus 2 unnecessary appointments...)

The only ambulance we've had sent was probably unnecessary - we could have driven the child with obvious chicken pox plus breathing difficulties to A&E but the hope was that the ambulance crew could assess at home and when it became necessary to send in we could avoid exposing the waiting room to chicken pox... It would have been far easier to just drive to A&E then getting home would have been less of a mission the next day but it was decided to be in the best interest of everyone that child was more contained.

I've also been in A&E with the seemingly happy 3 year old with a finger at a funny angle (if you looked closely). That age group can't be seen at minor injuries so you have no choice but to wait until there are no more ill children coming through (along with all the other broken ankles, wrists and toes ...)

You should have called for a taxi or somehow got a neighbour with a car to drive them there.

Clearly you know fuck all about dislocations and risk to limbs. Bravo.

The people suggesting a taxi or getting a lift have obviously never dislocated anything!

We had to call an ambulance for my 85 year old dad last night. Ridiculously it was for a fall which resulted in a nosebleed that wasn’t stopping after over an hour. He lost so much blood that he was going into shock. We couldn’t lift him and he didn’t have the strength to get up himself.

He is still in the ambulance outside A&E nearly 9 hours later.

There's no way 2 untrained adults could safely get someone with a dislocated hip off the floor into a vehicle. Let alone dislocated shoulder as well - how do you lift support them if the shoulder on the same side is also damaged?

I expect I could pick up a child under about 25kg but even a frail female is likely to weigh around 35-40 kg which is beyond a reasonable weight for most people to lift if it's an awkward load.

That's ignoring the safety of the person being lifted... An first responder could potentially have replaced the shoulder acutely (especially if previous history of dislocation) but after a long wait it's a hospital plus anaesthetic job!

This is one of the cases where an ambulance is not needed (straight away, at least).

Your MIL should subscribe to an alarm service. If she falls the alarm triggers contact with her. If she doesn't respond two care workers are dispatched with all the relevant equipment to get her off the floor safely and family are alerted. Is she has fallen and cannot get up up she just tell them this and they come out and get up from the floor.

The emergency care workers are trained to a high standard. They are more than than capable of checking her over to see if she needs medical attention, giving emergency first aid and being given appropriate help via the ambulance service while they wait.

I have a medical condition that causes me to collapse and become unconscious for up to 36 hours; I also suffer balance problems causing falls. I have an alarm. it costs me £29.30 a month. I struggle badly to pay it, but it saves on unnecessary ambulances whilst ensuring SOMEONE is there within minutes if I'm dangerously unwell and unable to call for help (Iive alone)

Please, call your local adult social services to look into getting one for MIL; it will free up ambulances for those who need them.

It's shocking really. It's sometimes easier if you won't cause more damage to take the patient there yourself.

A few months ago, DH looked off to me. He is not one to complain and is a pain in the arse about health stuff. He admitted he was getting pain down to his arm and he was clammy and woozy. I rang for an ambulance.

I got told, I'm very sorry but can you get him there yourself? If not we will try and get an ambulance to you but the current wait is over 5 hours

5 hours with heart attack symptoms. I had thought maybe they were trying to weed out the "says heart attack but probably indigestion" crowd but no.

I got him to A+E myself, they took him straight through. The lady on the desk reassured me I had done the right thing and confirmed the wait was correct, and said non-life threatening things like bone breaks and such were taking 24 hours depending on the age of the patient

It's not what the NHS wants either, they've been pleading with a succession of different government individuals for over a decade now for funding and getting ignored.

sorry, I just scrolled back and realise someone else has also mentioned this.

Poor man, I hope he's seen to soon. Waiting in an ambulance at his age could cause further problems surely. I know the paramedics will be trying to keep him comfortable but it's far from ideal.