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

@scaredoff Sadly yes I think that's true. Far too many people including plenty of mumsnetters are fine with a system that they can opt out of by paying for many parts- be it medical or education- A&E brings it home though to all-- as you can't go private for that. I always said about the USA it was a pretty good place to live 'if' you had good health cover and no chronic illness, high earnings and a relatively affordable home in a good area. Basically great if everything in live was going 100% to plan- the minute it wasn't you were in shit creek- UK has become the same

Totally agree @nilsmousehammer the move away from cottage hospitals etc to the model where you have these regional centres of excellence has been a disaster. Yes people need highly specialised acute services but they also need basic care and recuperation, they seemed to just shut it all down and now look at the mess.

The other thing that’s “missing” is sheltered housing - it seems to have disappeared since the 80s. There’s nowhere to go when you are more or less independent but just needing a safety net.

Neighbour’s alarm had gone off before her last fall, as heard her phone ringing through the wall at 2am. (Victorian houses)
It turned out she had just knocked it somehow.
For those of us who live alone- Esp with a dog or cat-
it us a worry if we were stuck.
A youngish ( late 40’s) friend did die alone- Unexpectedly- It was me who flagged him up as not answering his door or phone over several days-we were meant to meet up.

As a society, we do need to look out for each other.

Many more people are living alone these days.

It's disgusting. Even if they can't send an ambulance or transport yet they should at least send somebody to administer pain relief in the meantime.

Ok, so you're making the decision where to send the one free ambulance - do you send it to the person with the dislocated shoulder and hip, the person having a stroke, or the person having a heart attack?

Of course I wouldn't like it if it were me lying there, but this is the current situation - there are more people urgently needing an ambulance than there are ambulances free to go to them. Even those prioritised as medical emergencies are waiting too long.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, I think it's terrible - and I've been to A&E twice this year, not by ambulance, and I've seen what it's like - I'm just stating a fact. The capacity is not there.

Waited an hour for 1 with my son and they asked if I could drive him to a&e to get checked. I said yes but they then said there was no other job calls in so they were going back to the hospital so would just take us. Was very lucky as he then got worse trying to get in the ambulance so I'm glad they were there. This was about 1am.

A relative waited just over 3 hours for an ambulance while having a heart attack. Then another wait on a trolley in the hospital corridor. He was then sent straight for surgery and told that they'd only just made it in time to save him. It's truly terrifying.

Well it is mainly lack of funding. We spend considerably less per head than most other western countries. That's not a coincidence. Better funding would enable more staff and more facilities which would reduce waiting times. It really is that simple.
That's not to say there aren't problems or inefficiencies - there are in every organisation.

Plenty of sheltered housing round here (South Yorkshire) @MrsAmaretto, where do you live?

Our neighbour fell literally a couple of dozen times over a 12 month period, repeated hospital stays, before he admitted that living alone w carers 3 times a day wasn't working for him. And I've heard similar from others. People want to stay home even when they can't manage any more (or the home isn't suitable).

And this is a problem through every service, whether NHS or LA.

We started trying to get help for DS in February.

Referrals were turned down - except for the ND Pathway, but that has a waiting list of 26 months. He's now school refusing, we've had the police called out, multiple GP appointments, Engagement Team now heavily involved, meeting with the Inclusion Team soon, appointment with mental health services coming up, I've ended up in A&E twice, and I'm under the Primary Mental Health Support Service, had five weeks off work with stress, and we're accessing or in touch with services all over the place.

Or something could have been done in February, and maybe things wouldn't have got this bad.

In 2015/16 It took 11 months to go from first symptoms & diagnosis, to having the urgent operation I needed - and I get why, because emergencies come above urgent - but there were multiple trips to A&E, to the GP, prescribed painkillers, multiple ultrasound scans, sick notes when I couldn't work, time off work etc. (and the constant risk it could turn from urgent to emergency, which would have meant no keyhole surgery, a longer recovery time etc. etc.)

If things were working properly, an operation within weeks would have been cheaper.

But services are firefighting, and have been for a long time. Covid has just exposed how bad things really are.

It's not necessarily what the money would be spent on, more the discouragement to call. And whilst that sounds awful, a massive amount of calls we attend on the ambulance are absolutely not required. Working as a frontline Paramedic I rarely administer anything stronger than paracetamol, and it's not uncommon for not a single patient seen in the shift to need any transportation to hospital - just signposting to see their GP/self care or have a chat with the pharmacist for OTC medicines advice.

Now I'm pragmatic at work, I dont get cross with patients, I recognise that often people just lack the education/have never had the opportunity to learn to look after themselves and can't really help it. I get paid the same to access the back pain someone's had for 15 years as I do to manage a major RTC with multiple catastrophic injuries. The thought is that a lot of the silly calls will stop if people have to pay at the point of care and the general feeling is that is the way we will go.

As an example last week I attended a call from 111, a 32 yr old with asthma called 111 to say she didn't have time to collect her prescribed inhalers. She had no disability, parenting 2 children, lived independently, but subscribed to the thought process that she shouldn't have to take time out of her day for healthcare that the NHS should sort all that. 111 messed up, and rather then shutting it down dispatched it under an emergency response - basically asthmatic, no medications, looking after children - can't be too safe. So I arrive basically "oh hi, thank you for coming, I just need my inhalers picking up please it's at x pharmacy". This job was coded cat 2 so would take priority over the fall fractured pelvis. The thought is that if the public knew there was going to be a charge of x pounds for any ambulance attendance that a lot what stop. Obviously there will be downsides but something has to change to free ambulance crews up to attend those that really need help because we are absolutely getting destroyed attending minor illness.

My mum went in with dislocated shoulder age 74 .they kept her in on a ward for 5 weeks .
they decided she needed a secure residential home ,which I had found and put deposit down by week one .
no idea what the hold up was for 4 extra weeks ,never found out

My DH spent just over 30 hours in A&E waiting for a bed because he needed 'emergency' surgery about a month ago. Shocking, sitting in an overcrowded A&E making what he needed surgery for worse. Treatment was brilliant once he was finally admitted, but what it took to get there was unreal ... and he was forced to wait alone since no 'extras' were allowed in A&E due to overcrowding.

I had to call an ambulance for my toddler who was very unwell with a fever and having a seizure. I told there was nothing for two hours but to call back if he stopped breathing. Fucking insane.

Ok, so you're making the decision where to send the one free ambulance - do you send it to the person with the dislocated shoulder and hip, the person having a stroke, or the person having a heart attack?

And this is the cold, hard reality after years of cutting funding, understaffing, and driving staff back to Europe with their poor treatment in the run up to and post-Brexit. Tories want to privatise ... those at the top can afford private care, so they don't give a fuck that this is the kind of realities the general public is facing.

We were just lucky we managed to transport my DH to the A&E with friends who could carry him to/from a car. And then he waited ... as it was, he was booted less than 12 hours after major surgery as they needed the bed. Same all over the ward. Nurses said they'd never seen anything like it, and it's a top hospital.

We're fucked.

And who would that be?

A GP? Never going to happen.

OOH? Again, once triaged and assessed by 999 it's deemed as 'our job' so never going to happen.

It's us, the ambulance service, the catch all service, the mobile 'I just want to be checked over service'
The service that tries their hardest to refer patients to avoid an ED visit.
And that's a fucking joke - try referring the MH pt at any time between 1700-0900. That's usually met with 'oh just take them to the local ED'
Try referring the elderly for a review of non existent or substandard POC.
Try referring back to 111 for the job that's suitable for an OOH visit.

Brick wall. Every single fucking time.

Who? There. Isn't. Anybody. To. Send.

Years of cuts to health care providers and people leaving the service in disgust, but plenty of overpaid 'managers'.

A few years ago I rang 111 for advice for a 3 week old baby who had an horrific cough, and was bringing up feeds, it was overnight and a weekend and so GP was not available.

I was advised by 111, after they mistook my babies cough for a dog bark that a paramedic team would be sent and they would assess my baby.

When they arrived about 3 hours later, they advised that all they could do was take us to A & E as my baby was under 5 months Old.

If we had been advised of this we could have made a decision as to whether we thought A&E was needed at that point, and if so I would have driven.....by taking us it meant an ambulance was taken up when I could have transported the baby, we had to wait not sure as to what the outcome would be, and we ended up having to get a taxi home at 5am due to my DH staying with our other baby child who was sleeping (minimal issue I know).

111 were very helpful, or it seemed so at the time, however I agree maybe updates to advice could alleviate a little of the demand.

I hear you. I don't have the answers. It's so bloody awful that people are being left in pain.

Omg this os happening in canada also! My daughter had a fever and I strongly suspected that it was an ear infection. We are the few people who have a family doctor in atlantic canada but it’s essentially useless because he refused to see her in person because she had a fever and therefore might be covid. Anyways he said “Try giving her tylenol and if the fever gets too high take her to the ER.” I mean it’s frustrating he can’t even be bothered to rule out easily treatable diseases. All he has to do is look into her ears. Anyways it turned out to be hand foot and mouth disease so there was nothing to do but wait for her to fight it off but it seems ridiculous to me. 811 is useless to. They are constantly telling people to just go to the hospital. Do they not see the huge problem with this? The IWK has been backed up for months!

Baby that age, always go straight to a&e.

you will be prioritised

Thank you.

So there just aren’t enough staff throughout entire service?

It’s very sad 😢 someone on the 1st page mentioned a few years ago their dad waited 5
hours for a bed that would be a dream. Where I work the wait time just last night was 26 hours. 26 HOURS on a trolley in a&e, breaks my heart.

There are almost 200 patients in our hospital who are medically ready to be discharged but need care and there are no carers for them to have at home or care homes for them to go to. That is the crux of the issue.

Same for mental health.which sadly I do think lack of funding and help IS due to people not caring or seeing these as important.or not understanding them enough.a go gets JUST two,two hours of training through our their whole education for some of these conditions. Some even less time. That's disgusting.
The wait for support is horrendous.and even then it's not adequate.

Really frightening. How many people are dying because they aren’t getting help in time ? A decade ago I was injured and an ambulance took just under an hour to reach me. That seemed an incredibly long time then, DH was panicking. It takes some time to get into an ambulance, and then to the hospital, more time to get seen. If you have waited over half a day, how does that affect your chances ? It is so shocking.