I know IABU, blatantly using this for traffic. Emergency situation, no ambulance still, and need advice

[TheChinkOfaGlass]

Hi everyone

My Auntie had a fall this morning and has seriously hurt her hip. Luckily she was close enough to the bed to get herself up on it.

999 said it is not an emergency and to contact 111, she was in severe agony and is 78 years old. I rang 111 who after assessing her, decided she did indeed need an ambulance.

I had originally offered to take her to the hospital but she lives on the top floor of a maisonette, and is unable to sit up (so a car journey would be no good and I would be unable to carry her to the car anyway. I did get help but she declined due to the inability to even sit up).

Her husband is disabled so isn't much use (I mean this in the nicest possible way, he is trying his best) other than keeping an eye on her.

So we could be waiting hours for an ambulance but in the meantime she is soaked through on the bed due to urinating on herself. I am going there in the next 30 minutes.

Is it safe to roll her to change the sheets to make her more comfortable? I don't like the idea of her lying in a soaking bed while she waits. I am also scared of causing more pain/damage by moving her. We do not know what's wrong, she thinks it may he her hip. I just don't know what to do. I have never experienced this kind of thing.

Her partner has managed to change her underwear but when the bed is so wet, it wouldn't really make a difference.

So what is the answer?

We are a rapidly ageing society.

People are living long enough to get dementia and the likelihood of dangerous falls.
Years ago people died young of TB and infections, it was very rare that people reached 80/90/100..Now it's quite common, but there aren't the places to care for these increasingly frail people.

Is it any better in America where it's all private healthcare?

metro.co.uk/2022/12/06/man-waited-seven-hours-for-ambulance-despite-living-opposite-hospital-17885599/

I hope your relative receives care soon

I read this story recently

Any news OP?

My friend is a 999 call handler in the midlands and she was telling us that the below are what they have to tell people calling for an ambulance:

Category 1: Severe bleeding with breathing difficulties such as stabbed or shot, cardiac arrest with person not breathing.
ETA up to 20 mins

Category 2: Stroke or severe chest pain
ETA 40-60 mins

Category 3: Person having seizures, diabetic hypos, woman in late stage of labour
ETA 2-6 hours

Category 4: Fall, accident where something may be broken
Non life threatening
ETA 30-60 hours

At work, they all agree the NHS is not fit for purposes any more.

Jesus Christ OP, I am so sorry. I am so grateful at least you Aunt has you, what about an elderly person all alone?! Terrifying. Thinking of you both.

Category 3: Person having seizures, diabetic hypos, woman in late stage of labour
ETA 2-6 hours

2-6 hours?! I had a very rare and totally unforeseen traumatic birth on my last baby. Both my DD and I would be dead if we were waiting that long for an ambulance in these circumstances. Jesus Christ. That is shocking.

This is just horrifying. Poor OP and her poor aunt.

I retired a couple of years ago after a loooong career in Emergency Nursing and Triage. Yesterday, based on my knowledge and experience, I was in "Don't move her" camp. Now, like @FixTheBone, I'm saying get her to hospital by any means possible.

40-odd years ago, during fire evacuation training, we were taught to drag bed-bound patients out on their mattresses. The sides hopefully are bendy enough to allow passage through narrow stairwells. Secure aunt to mattress somehow (gaffer tape?) and pad her with pillows, blankets, whatever.

I think it's time the hugely expensive Nightingale Hospitals were put back into service, either to take ambulance patients or, preferably imo, those on wards fit for discharge but with no place available, thus freeing up acute beds.

I am incandescent with rage about this. Those of us in healthcare have all seen it coming and been shouting about it for YEARS.

I am so horrified by this thread that I never want it to disappear, I want it in mumsnet classics or somewhere so that it can be bumped constantly during election time.

Let's remind people this is how bad things got in December 2022.

I think that like the covid threads, this crisis needs to be documented for posterity.

I really hope your auntie will be OK. I haven't felt so moved by a mumsnet thread since...ever

This is awful. I really hope OP's auntie is now on the way to hospital.

A similar thing happened to a colleague's 90 yo DM a month or so ago. She waited over 24 hours for an ambulance and then a further 36 hours on a hospital trolley until she was admitted.

The family made a real fuss, rightly so, and contacted the local press. The DS was interviewed on local radio and tv. Hasn't solved the situation for others, but the more this kind of stuff is reported, the better.

The Nightingale emergency hospitals have mainly been dismantled.

However the biggest issue with them was they didn't have enough medical staff to staff them. Its one thing drafting in veterinary and dental nurses during the pandemic it's another to do that in normal times.

I keep checking on this thread hoping for a positive update 😢

Hoping for some good news. This is horrifying. I work in a hospital and we are regularly on critical incident. I think covid was a convenient excuse for so long for things being so bad but now there is zero excuse. Absolutely frightening.

2-6hrs for late labour or diabetic hypos? In 2021 and 2022 I've had to phone an ambulance for both. And twice they were there within 15 mins. If I'd been waiting 2hrs the baby would've been here with her cord round her neck which the paramedics manged to sort. And 2hrs for DH in a severe DKA would've died.

I can't fathom a Category 4 being 30 - 60 hours.

Call the GP surgery and ask for an urgent duty GP call. They should also be able to try to get the district nurses or emergency carers to attend to personal care needs seeing as it’s an emergency.

Category 4 are less urgent medical issues that should really be dealt with by a GP. I am not surprised that during a strike they are taking so long.

@RosesAndHellebores one of the biggest issues facing the NHS is the fact that the social care system is in crisis, if you cannot safely discharge someone home with a 4xdaily care package or find a bed elsewhere, they have to stay in a hospital bed until you do, which isn't good for them or anyone else needing a bed.
This leads to ambulances getting stacked outside A&E as they cannot handover patients, which inevitably means less capacity in the ambulance service, if each crew, that previously on average would attend 5-6 calls per shift, can now only take one in a 12 hour shift, you can see why there is such a crisis ?
There are approx 100,000 hospital beds ( acute and general ) for a population of 56 million people in England. Long term planning should have picked up the fact that with an aging demographic, this might turn out to be not enough ? But governments don't tend to be very good at proper long term planning ?
The majority of adult social care, so residential and domiciliary, in the UK is provided by the private sector, most places and agencies around here will not accept new referrals over a weekend or a Bank holiday. If a person in an NHS bed becomes fit for discharge over a weekend and needs a package of care, it is unlikely that the private sector will be able to provide any until the Tuesday at the earliest. What happens then is either the person has to stay in the bed or there is a limited NHS provision to bridge the care gap.

None of which will help a 78 yr old woman in agony with a suspected broken pelvis or hip, who cannot access suitable pain relief and will have to lie in bed and wet herself until someone is eventually free to help her

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3764459-Boris-Johnson-refuses-to-look-at-photo-of-child-on-hospital-floor

A broken bone is an emergency, not a GP matter!

But all these post grads in the system, drs, nurses, ceo's etc why aren't the priorities being filtered down?

The GP's need in these circumstances to be out providing pain relief and showing rellies how to turn and keep comfortable, the post grad practice nurses ought to be dealing with the URTI's, UTI's and day to day stuff, the pharmacists ought to be prescribing AB's for suspected strep. It isn't rocket science to keep this moving pragmatically. Paramedic teams of two shoukd be looking after two patients to keep the vehicles moving for the most critical. Not optimal but a zillion times better than the present shit show but no doubt Computah Sezs No, Jobsworth sezs no.

I trust all the ceo's on £150k plus are in A&E and out on the queues handing out tea and coffee to exhausted relatives and ambulance crews. They bloody well ought to be.

That is a hospital matter, but not an ambulance usually. And unfortunately when things are so shit, it can wait. Personally I would go to a walk in if you have one near you anyway, not A and E.

Are you taking the mickey?

Same! This thread is absolutely horrifying!! I'm so sorry OP

Are you posting on the right thread?

Say someone was at my local yard was to fall off their horse, and obviously break their ankle. Can't move them because they were seen to fall from height at speed on to their head and they report neck pain. Not initially life threatening, but 30 hours laid on a cold arena floor outdoors may well tip them over in to the life threatened category....I hope to fuck some common sense would be applied somewhere

An elderly lady had fallen and not can’t move due to agonising pain. On the 3rd floor.

How is this not an ambulance job?