To think most people probably don't need an ambulance...

[Vwswimmer1]

Just that really. Also so many people that don't realise you still get triaged in an ambulance and can end up in the waiting room with everyone else...

Obviously not about people who can't mobilise or people or genuinely need one but the amount of stories I heard of people calling ambulances when they really don't need to.

Crewed ambulances are needed to transport mental health patients that have been sectioned to hospital/136.
They certainly don't always need care on the way there, but it seems to be a requirement . It ties up ambulance crew and police for hours.

Just to add to my previous comment, I do wonder where MH patients stand in all of this during the strikes.

Of course it's about a number of things

But be on my end when you cannot get people safely into hospices or hospital and that it will be unlikely tomorrow as service is now on crisis and will be backed up for days. Watch someone in tremendous pain and then tell me this was worth it? I don't believe it was .

Yes, to an extent you are correct, and also not. Many more people you could get there themselves, at night, call an ambulance as they don't want to get the whole family up to drive them in. But these ambulances are freed up again pretty quick, as the paperwork is simple and they are offloaded immediately to the WR. It is frustrating, and I wish people did try a tad harder to get themselves to hospital- especially the 20-55 yr old demographic who do usually have another adult they can ask.

I think what they are wrong to do this, if only one life is lost as a result of their strike, it would be a tragedy. They need to get round the negotiating table and get a deal sorted out, putting lives at risk is unacceptable. Don't forget these days the majority of private workers don't have a union.

It will be higher, once the Nov figures are published on Dec 22, and it's already at 80% in some areas, which is the same percentage as pre-Covid.

Plus, appointments are up by 20%, compared to 2019. There are about 1,033,333 general practice consultations per day now (as of Oct), compared to 1,000,000 per day in Oct 2019.

71% of 1,033,333 is 733,667
80% of 1,000,000 is 800,000

So the total number of face to face appointments in October 2022 was already very nearly at pre-Covid levels - only 66,333 fewer or 3,000 (across the whole country) per working day.

And that's with a significantly fewer trained GPs than pre-Covid

A friends disabled son had constipation for nearly two weeks Have you ever seen excrement coming up the other way?

Well I can say that at least one person has been left in tremendous pain and dying as a result of ambulance strike today. One of many as I'm just one HCP.

I dont care about the unimportant call outs, that needs a resolution, but I do care about palliative and urgent paramedic responses to those with preventable deaths in patients who needed ambulances today

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow exactly, so they have less appointments than pre covid.

When I worked in A&E there was one guy who used to phone up like clockwork every Friday night at 23:30 with “chest pain” to get a lift home from the pub (lived fairly close by, Hastings town centre is about a mile away from the hospital down a steep hill and he obviously didn’t fancy walking back up it).

I’ve heard similar stories in every hospital I’ve worked in. I’m quite sure the call handlers knew him the minute he rang in, we certainly wondered what was up if “Cyril” hadn’t pitched up by 23:40.

Yep several times in my area of work and infact been covered in it when I passed an NGT on a patient whose stomach was full of excrement.

@Tiani4 no good HCP wants to see people in pain, this is why they're in the job.

The government aren't listening, they don't give one shit that patient safety is being compromised everyday.

This is why it has come to this.

Yeah I don’t understand it, I fell down stairs and broke my ankle and all the bystanders wanted to call me an ambulance! I refused as there was a taxi stand 50m away. They helped me get to it and then the cab driver dropped me right at the ER doors. Got there way faster than waiting for an ambulance.

71% is a majority.

But it wasn't 2 weeks & no NG was needed 🙄 he was discharged from ED with laxatives.

And I can guarantee that a lot more have because of the way our government is grinding the NHS down.

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/26/rotherham-inquiry-after-family-says-boy-5-died-after-hospital-turned-him-away

Just one example here.

There's nothing to prevent private workers from joining a union.

Perhaps the government should show a willingness to negotiate - the Health Secretary has refused to.

The problem is often getting the casualty to a vehicle if they're an adult. I could definitely carry my kids to the car - carried overtired 7 year old to bed no bother, but would need help to carry DH anywhere, likewise DH for me.

That said I'm quite strong, the kids are young and slight - and a lot of kids are as tall as their parents by 10 or so. A parent with their own mobility issues isn't going to be carrying an average sized 8 year old very far!

Come off it. You didn't think the figures were going to be anything like as high as they are, but you're too invested in your anti-GP rhetoric to admit that.

In October, there were 3,000 fewer F2F appointments per day, compared to pre-Covid, across the whole country. That's less than half an appointment per GP practice. Are you really saying that half an appointment per practice less is a significant difference?

And how do you think a dwindling number of GPs could have delivered a 20% increase in productivity without adapting their working style? Without telephone appointments, it would be impossible.

People like you are the useful idiots for the Government, who want the public to blame GPs, not the Government, for NHS failings.

@Poppedmytyreffs so if you were talking about one case why did you make it sound like you were talking generally. Very disingenuous and a bit below the belt to use one case to patient blame

Thank you for telling me what the conditions are which I'm fully aware of. And as am in same boat and supportive of collective bargaining.
Just that our patients are human beings, and at least one patient today has been tremendously caused harm, and left in terrible pain as a result of this strike action. We do no harm. I'm a union member and I would not have striked. There should have been a Triage and better plan, an emergency option for those that needed luge and death care and needed to go into hospice or a&e today as they were / and are dying.

@Luckydip1

Assume you are talking about the Govt? as the unions have said they will suspend action if Barclay will discuss pay, just discuss, no new offer required.

He has refused to do so.

On deaths, around 200 per week die needlessly because of an underfunded NHS and Social Care system.

Thats down to the employee, anyone can join a union or if things are so cushy in the NHS, they can apply for one of the 110k vacancies?

@Tiani4 if you're fully aware of the conditions then why blame the ambulance staff?

Why not the government that put us into this mess?

The vaccine mandates have added to the problem Insane Fucking lunacy

Paramedics and HCP and social care are not like other services, as people die of are left in terrible pain and awful crises if we do a blanket strike

Why was this not better thought out? Same impact could have happened with a limited strike or reduction in service without the tremendous pain it caused today