To think this waste of NHS resources is abhorrent?

[TootYourOwnHorn]

My little boy woke up in the middle of the night with severe croup, struggling to get a breath. This has happened before and we were told to call an ambulance if it happens again. So we did. We were told several hours wait and to take him in ourselves. Not ideal as the hospital is 30 minutes away but luckily we do drive, although it was a rather scary drive. Would've thought that a child with severe breathing difficulties would've been a priority but there you go.

Anyway, the issue is that as soon as we arrived at the hospital we got a phone call to say there was an ambulance outside our house. We told them we'd taken him in as advised, then they said "well next time you need to cancel the ambulance". As far as we knew they hadn't sent one as we'd agreed to take him in ourselves. So due to the lack of communication they've wasted an ambulance, the cost of that ambulance and the waiting time for someone else who needed it! This is insane to me. The call handler also didn't know the difference between a rash and mottled skin. Surely more training is needed here, this isn't ok? I would never waste an ambulance like this, and I'm a bit offended that she suggested so! But more offended at the absolute waste of resources.

I genuinely think the issue isn't lack of resources, but how they're managed! Not sure if I should bring this to someone's attention so it doesn't keep happening.

The NHS is in a terrible state, not really sure who is classed a priority - not even my poor Dad who was dying with terminal cancer and so unwell that it was almost impossible to move him ourselves. It’s horrific.

the NHS is at breaking point... its wasting money left right and centre... its not just a&e, its so many other departments as well.

even down to staff... my husband used to work for the NHS and a complaint was made against him, something and nothing.. but they have a process they have to follow... he was off work, on FULL PAY for 10 months, all because one department didnt speak to another.

it could have been resolved in days.. but the NHS process is such that as i said, 10 months on full pay... thats thousands and thousands of pounds just wasted...

top and bottom, one department simply does not communicate with another..

@Whatsnormalhere it's just awful isn't it. I understand there may well have been sicker people, and we got him there ok so it wasn't the end of the world for us, but what if someone was having a heart attack. So sorry about your dad

@catmomma67 wow that's ridiculous! I wish they'd bring back the ward sisters and matrons and get rid of these upper management roles who don't step foot in the hospital for the majority of the time. They're haemorrhaging money for no good reason. No one can get appointments (I have a 2 year wait for neurology even though this issue is ruining my life, I can't work! I can't use my skills). I hope everything resolved ok for your husband!

I will add, children's a&e were brilliant, the nurses couldn't do enough for us and he got seen very quickly. Although the doctor never did get around to us but luckily treatment is straightforward so it wasn't needed.

I would personally report matter of factly, you understood that your were taking him in and that the call handler was well aware of this and therefore ambulance was needlessly sent.

They will most likely have record of call dialogue so can address things. Small changes such as clear language and party responsibility laid out may like you say reduce this from happening again.

I wish they'd bring back the ward sisters and matrons and get rid of these upper management roles who don't step foot in the hospital for the majority of the time.

Why do people keep on repeating this over and over? There seems to be some belief that if doctors and nurses were the only ones in a hospital that it would run itself perfectly. I can tell that you have never worked in the NHS. If one thng is certain it is that medical staff are very good at treating people but really terrible at running an organisation.

Plus the fact that studies have consistently shown that the NHS has fewer managers, as a % of the workforce, than average across the rest of the economy.

What are the reasons then? Is it poor communication?

Yes, exactly. Certainly in many trusts, there are sisters and matrons. I've never worked with a senior manager who doesn't set foot in the hospital

The NHS is in crisis, but the solution isn't sisters and matrons.

Matrons and Ward sisters have been brought back!

In waste and inefficiency is the problem. We spent a mint on an expensive system, that was used for 6 months then scrapped. I could go on!

A friend's business makes a large item of equipment for the NHS, say imagine it's a hospital bed (it isn't!). They were processing a big order. When it was delivered the trust said they now didn't want one element of the order (say it was 20 of an item and they all came with a specific add-on item, let's say a meal tray that attaches over the bed, that had been requested as part of the original order) and could my friend's business please collect them. Friend collected 20 of these meal trays boxed and new, and said he would return them to the manufacturer and provide a credit. The trust said they wouldn't be able to process a credit note and it was written off now. Cost of returned meal trays that cannot be credited was £60k. This must be happening all over the place.

We were sent an ambulance blue lighted by 111. I was really confused. They’d recorded me saying that my child was asleep but I could wake him as him be unresponsive!

To be fair, I would say it was quite a waste to call an ambulance in the first place, I get that you were told to but it would have been much quicker and more efficient to just get there yourself.

There are ward sisters, well there were when I was in hospital about 5 years ago. The sister on the ward I was on was brilliant.

Personally, I actually think it's too many staff, too many people involved in pretty simple routines, made worse by the artificial "internal market" that puts a price on everything which has caused a small army of staff accounting for transfers of notional monies between departments, trusts and budgets.

Only this morning, my OH went for his monthly chemotherapy drug package to find the oncology dept had lost it! This isn't paracetamol at 1p per tablet, some of the tablets are over £100 per tablet, and one is over £1,000 per tablet. No one seemed to care they'd lost them! Just glibly told him he'd have to come back next week (i.e. a week without regular treatment) as they needed to put the prescription through the entire process again, including blood test result checking, signing off by oncologist, signing off by department manager, signing off by "business management" etc and finally getting the hospital pharmacy to order them and issue them, not to mention having to make a new appointment with a specialist cancer nurse to actually hand them over to him.

Piss up and brewery springs to mind. Far too many people involved, all chasing eachother and things getting forgotten when, inevitably, one person in the chain is "off on Fridays" or "only works mornings", or is "working from home and not answering their phone" etc etc.

I had cause to take a child to hospital recently, they decided she was fine to be discharged.

I was told this could happen at lunchtime.

I was still there, waiting for the discharge letter at 11pm (taking up am en-suite bedroom)

Last year, my brother had a stroke - it was 6.30am on a Saturday. His wife phoned for an ambulance and was told it would be "at least two hours".

Knowing - from those ads they show on TV that a stroke is time-critical - she roused their 17 year old daughter and together they got him into the car and drove him to A & E where, thankfully, he was immediately triaged through and treated. He spent 3 days in hospital (and tests subsequently showed that this superfit, ex Royal Marine has a heart condition called patent foramen ovale, which means he is prone to strokes - he's awaiting an operation to cure it).

Some people cannot be got into a car and driven there. I suspect that some of the enormous pressure on ambulance resources is due to the massive rise in mental health cases they're dealing with plus - obviously - the queues in which the ambulances have to wait at A & E to hand over the patients they take there.

That advice is the same we were given after sudden onset croup with DD some years ago. Paramedics carry a lot of medications with them, including steroids which can turn around a child at home, avoiding going to A&E at all. Paramedics aren't just medically trained transport, they can assess/treat and discharge quite a lot, avoiding hospital attendance.

In our local hospital, 3 band 8 nurses (48.5k starting salary plus 30% or 60% night shift/weekend extra) were employed to “manage patient flow and staffing”. This was previously done by a band 7 bed manager. So these flow managers sit in the office all night phoning wards to ask if they have a bed to take someone from A&E - answer is almost always no as people do not get sent home during the night! (okay someone might die but the bed manager would know about this and update the bed availability accordingly).

It’s a complete waste of money. I do some bank shifts there and one of the people doing this job told me it was money for nothing but they were so bored they were going to go back to a band 6 ward post.

I am a supporter of the NHS but the waste and mis management is appalling. Don’t even get me started on the waste in care homes - literally millions of pounds in unnecessary prescriptions for meds, medicated toothpaste and dressings to name a few.

Plus the fact that studies have consistently shown that the NHS has fewer managers, as a % of the workforce, than average across the rest of the economy.

Of course the NHS needs management. It's the fifth biggest employer in the world (or thereabouts).

The issue seems to be in the quality and training of this management. A poster on here a few weeks ago made the point that so many who do these jobs are NHS lifers. And so the need to evolve and innovate isn't always met.

The whole system needs a total overhaul. But this is such an enormous job, no political party has the will to do it.

I am a supporter of the NHS but the waste and mis management is appalling.

This, absolutely.

I've said for decades, that the individual practitioners you meet at all points of the NHS are almost to a (wo)man, lovely, who are doing their absolute best in such a dire system it is unbelievable.

Re the OP though, I do have to ask how clear she was in saying "Okay, we can take him in - we won't need an ambulance" though ? I mean, clearly the despatchers can make human errors, just like anyone else, but I suspect what probably happened was that she didn't leave the phone call with that being clear.

Yes, in my experience the most senior consultants and surgeons (not all obviously) are the biggest blockers and most inefficient, least inclined to work hard. What's really needed is managers who have some real actual authority over them

I phoned 111 for advice (as advised on here actually) because I had chest pain. Adult DS was with me and would have taken me to A&E but they insisted on sending an ambulance.

The same happened to my sister who had difficulty breathing, 111 sent a blue light ambulance to take her to ED despite her saying DH can take her as they have a car.

Doctors and Nurses may be terrible at running an organisation but the most infuriating thing is those that are paid to run the organisation are bloody useless at it as well.