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

One thing I have found is that the ambulance service categorise risk according to NEWS2 scores.

If you say 'elderly person on the floor' they are likely to get a very low category for response time.

However if you can say 'their blood pressure is x, pulse y, temperature z and their NEWS2 score is abc' the response time is a lot better as if they are really ill, this gets noted.

I learned this the hard way with my DM - first time 8 hours on the floor with sepsis, second time 30 minutes after focussing what info I gave on the phone.

You need a thermometer, a BP machine, a sats monitor and a clock. However even if you don't have all of these, you can get pretty far.

The £3000 lifting gadget is amazing in action. However now we rely on burly neighbours and manhandling as the wait is just so long.

I had a fall outside last week and unfortunately have broken my arm in many places and dislocated my elbow. Unfortunately after waiting for the ambulance for 2 1/2 hours then my friend drove me to the hospital. The pain of moving and being driven was something truly horrific. A&E were absolutely packed and I waited a further 5 hours to be seen by minor injuries.
I went back and forth to X-ray and each time the corridors were getting fuller and fuller of people on beds with drips and numerous ambulance crews waiting to discharge their people too. The HCA's told me that 'corridor' is now a designated work area to be based at for their shift.
I was discharged at 11pm with my arm in a partial plaster and sling with the instructions to be back at 7am the next day for emergency surgery. This was then cancelled at 6.30am and 6 days on I'm still waiting. I'm told that it definitely won't be before Thursday as it's half term so they're short staffed and in all likelihood won't be until next week. I've investigated going privately but the surgeon I need is the nhs surgeon too so I won't get it any quicker. I'm ok in myself and just staying very still and appreciate that orthopaedic surgery always gets bumped for life threatening surgery but I'm very sad that things are this way.

I'd argue that's not enough...

So I have the figure £107.8 billion which is spent on local integrated care boards - there are 42 of those, and having picked my local care board there are 6 local areas that can be spent in. Lets assume they all get an equal share of the pot which would give each area around £427.7 Million. That has to cover hospitals, that has to cover mental health services, ambulances, medicines, dentists, prescriptions for those that don't pay, eye tests, hearing care, Out-Patient clinics, support groups, building maintenance, catering in hospitals, bank and agency staff, funding normal staff, cleaning to name the things I can think of off the top of my head.

It equates to about 35 Million per area a month. A Wales Online article states that in December 2019 A&E visits alone without treatment cost the NHS 9 million pounds.

So is that really enough for the health service?

I was just going to quote the same example from that programme. It must be soul destroying being caught up in that sort of scenario. Passed back and forth between Crisis team and some other 'emergency' number. both saying it was the other team that the Paramedics needed to get back onto. Absolutely nobody taking fucking responsibility.

I was interested and saddened by this.

We've been the mobile family at home with a car in the driveway and a toddler with a fever. There was some extra factor, I think maybe a brief fit.

I would have happily driven my child to hospital. They'd have got there slightly quicker and we wouldn't have added to the pressure on the ambulance service. But 111 told us not to.

Is 111 giving the wrong advice and in need of retraining? Should I have ignored them and driven anyway? I felt terrible about using paramedics' time but don't feel confident going against medical advice.

111 advice is not the problem, the problem is a lack of social care places. It makes very little difference if you follow 111 advice or drive yourself, unless moving the patient would worsen their condition. Arguably yes you're better off in an ambulance not on the road if the child fits again on the way, but equally, if you're just at home with nobody medically trained waiting for the ambulance, you might as well be on the way to hospital instead, at least that's how it seems to me. Happy to be corrected.

I hope they got to hospital and relief from they’re pain. I remember a time when they stayed on the phone with you until the ambulance arrived. They can no longer do that even in life threatening situations because there is a queue waiting to get through for people in the same situation. Doesn’t help 111 send an ambulance out unesssesarily and A and E departments closing.

I live in Australia and am absolutely horrified by the idea of a 12 hour wait for an ambulance, if it takes longer than 15 minutes where I am it is seen as a fail. What the fuck has happened to the UK, lived there for 16 years and I’m sure it wasn’t like that 😐

You pay a fee for an ambulance in Australia though, don't you?

I’ve had this situation a few times. I have a son and daughter with an underlying health condition. They insist on sending an ambulance. We live about 1 1/2 miles from the hospital. I don’t drive but have a few taxi services in our area that run 24 hours. Usually a 5-10 minutes wait maximum of 20 minutes so still quicker than an ambulance.

Usually when I ring it’s because I am trying to avoid getting to the point of it being an emergency. But they insist they send an ambulance. By the time they get here they’re condition has escalated and it becomes an emergency situation. Then they end up in hospital for a few days so take up a bed which could have been avoided. I now just take them straight up. We get seen by triage within a minutes. Then we get put in a cubicle and there’s another wait and panic stations when I have to press the emergency call button.

They are desperately understaffed and staff are leaving because they don’t want to be responsible if someone dies under they’re care because they had too many patients to tend to.

How would paying a fee for an ambulance help?

There isn't enough capacity in the health service, beds, dr's, nurses, social care workers.

You told us earlier that money isn't the issue.

We brought my grandma a folding wheelchair and walker with a seat.

It probably wouldn’t have helped in this situation but there have been a few times where we’ve been able to lift her into the car and out the other end into the wheelchair.

It is much faster than waiting for an ambulance.
And if it is safe to do so then yes it may be a bit painful moving her but no more than having to wait 12+ hours for an ambulance.

It also means she has a seat in A&E as there often isn’t enough seating.

This situation scares me so much.

I will never forget the thread where the OP was waiting for an ambulance for her DH who was having a heart attack.

Money for social care would ease bed blocking, enabling patients needing to stay in hospital would get a bed more quickly.

This would free up space and staff in A&E so ambulances wouldn't be stuck outside for ages until there's capacity for the patient they're carrying to be admitted, so money would help.

@Crikeyalmighty

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.

I quite agree with your post and the need for radical change. But it hasn't "drifted". We've consciously created precisely the kind of society that a majority of the voting public wanted to create.

We need to do something to support the NHS. This should not be just stories on mumsnet. It should be all over the media and every politician should be answerable.

It’s money, it’s staffing, it’s morale, it’s a system under huge strain, it’s silly targets that dont’ look at whole systems, it is having had huge amounts of staff leave after the strain of Covid, it’s also still Covid which hasn’t gone away but public health / government are totally ignoring it.

We could argue all day about what it is. We need those who have wisdom and experience of being in the NHS on all levels of decades to be able to get around a table and tell us all what is needed.

I would say pretty much 111 advice needs altering in the current situation.

A toddler is the definition of portable. Toddler with a fever and no other signs of immediate threat to life - why wait.

I am sure 111 are concerned about the risk of deterioration while you are in the car - however the idea of risk needs updating if you are comparing an immediate 30 min car journey vs multiple hours wait for an ambulance.

And a look at the number of nhs beds per capita. We have one of the lowest. Governments will say it's a measure of efficiency that the NHS functions so well with less beds and medical staff but it's a lie. We need more hospitals, beds, trained staff now and in the long term. I agree social services is in a terrible state. It does not work putting profits at the heart of social care.

I am saddened to hear of your experience, and all others within this thread. It’s such a mess and is honestly quite scary. I have known 2 people who were waiting for surgery but died due to their conditions (I know yours isn’t life threatening so apologies for using your case to relay my story and I really don’t intend to make you fearful at all), so even life threatening conditions aren’t being dealt with in time.

My own mother also died after calling herself an ambulance and waiting for 4 hours. She was on her own and unresponsive by the time they turned up, and her being on her own and scared will haunt me forever.

I have the up most respect for anyone working in the NHS right now. Unfortunately I know of people leaving the NHS because of the sheer amount of stress and not being able to do their jobs properly too, which is completely understandable. It is a vicious cycle now that without complete dedication and overhaul appears unfixable.

These are good

EXCEPT my neighbour, 92 , fell and could reach her button- She had it on her, but it had slipped around and wasn’t reachable.
Very unlucky.
She died after 36 h on floor.
She could have shouted, I’d have heard her.

She “ Had had enough “ her daughter thought.
Neighbour said to me a few months prior “ I just want to join my Boys” ( In afterlife) .

That's not true @Topgub
In Switzerland the average nurses salary is the equivalent of £66k.
Healthcare is exceptional and one of the reasons we moved here from the UK and choose to stay here.
We've had to call an ambulance before for my son, it took 8 minutes to arrive. We visited A&E a few weeks ago when my son had croup, walked in, saw a nurse at reception, she confirmed he had croup and within five mins had given him steroids to help him breathe. We were home and back in bed within an hour and a half.
There is no waiting time for emergency treatment. There is no waiting time for GP appointments. They are same day appointments. When I was pregnant I had the mobile numbers and email addresses of my gynaecologist, haematologist, consultant so I could contact them when I needed to and they always responded.
It makes the UK look like a third world country. I worry so much about my elderly parents back in the UK.
NHS is totally broken. My mum has worked as a nurse for the NHS for 50 years, she's 72 and was still working until she was diagnosed with cancer 6 months ago. She says it's shocking how bad the system is. She recently spent 2 weeks in hospital - she had to change her own catheter bag, chase the nurses for meds which were meant to be given at set times, check all the meds she was given because they kept giving her the wrong dose or wrong tablet. She had stoma fitted and was on the urology ward and the nurse didn't even know how to change the bag then tried to change it with a colostomy bag instead of a urostomy one. Just an absolute shambles.

So what? That's just a number. None of us are in a position to properly conclude whether it's the right number, large enough for requirements or too large for tx implications etc. How does it compare with the number in other countries (taking into account private contributions in mixed systems etc.)? What proportion of that number is actually a proxy for social care, as others have described?

I get so sick of hearing people go on about how so much must be wrong with the way the NHS is run, the people in charge of it and so on - when we KNOW as a matter of statistical, financial fact that Britain spends a lower proportion of GDP per capita on healthcare than other comparable countries. How can one properly compare different systems when the inputs to those systems, what they have to work with, are so different?

So how about this - Somebody take an average of what similar countries around the world (the USA, France, Germany etc.) spend on healthcare, and we all agree to have the next government fund the NHS to that level, and to pay the requisite taxes to do so. THEN we see how its results compare to other countries, whether it still needs so much "reform", needs to be replaced altogether or maybe, just maybe, is perfectly fine the way it is as long as it has sufficient funding.

In my area, several care homes have been closed and developed into apartments and flats. There’s a severe shortage of suitable housing for elderly people, even if you could find the people to staff it.

Thanks @mrshoho He’s finally made it into A&E so at least the ambulance is now available for other calls.

My parents live in a mainly elderly people area. Just the other day their 90 year old neighbour was sent home from hospital after being admitted with badly broken leg. He has been given a hospital style bed and a commode. His 87 year old wife is expected to do the majority of his care with very little help. It was either that or stay in hospital indefinitely as there are no available care home places locally. It’s madness.

But we wouldn't need more beds if they sorted social care. In some trusts up to 50% of beds are blocked by elderly people who shouldn't be in them. That's hundreds of beds. If you magically removed all those people, there wouldn't be a bed problem.

As we all know, they managed to clear these beds for Covid. Turns out it wasn't a good idea, however, they did clear the hospitals. It can be done. Why not now??