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.

Call handlers are not clinically trained so are not really expected to know the difference between mottling and a rash. They just say the words on the script. Their job is to take calls and follow a script that depends on your answers to questions. They are not allowed to deviate from that script and that is what they get audited on. The call handlers type notes as the call progresses and the call gets categorised according to where the script has landed. Dispatchers can see the notes and the call disposition/category and dispatch according to what the computer says is priority. Nowadays calls are usually stacked in a queue so they have to juggle that. Unfortunately, with all that to juggle some miscommunications or misinterpretations can occur. It doesn’t happen often (because dispatchers are amazing at multitasking) but as with all elements of a job that involves humans errors sometimes occur.

In 20 years I’ve only been sent to a job where the patient has taken themselves to hospital less than a handful of times. It’s not a regular occurrence.

There is an element of day-to-day mismanagement that contributes to the problems in the ambulance service but understaffing also is genuinely a big problem. It isn’t one thing or another. It’s a multitude of problems/issues that all contribute.

I hope your DC is ok.

I have had the misfortune of sitting with a relative in A&E recently. The inefficiency and mismanagement are astounding. I would say there was more staff than patients yet the lack of communication and accountability shocked me. Staff were recording patient medical readings on scrapes of paper. Staff were sat at screens and ignoring relatives who were standing in front of them waiting to ask questions. My relative was approached twice with the wrong patients record. There was no information forthcoming from anyone about my relatives planned treatment. Each nurse we saw just took readings and had no idea why we were there or what the plan was. Even the drs were vague and just kept saying we were waiting for a bed without being able to say what the plan was after that. It took a complaint to PALs to get the ball rolling. The NHS does not need more money it needs to manage the money it has more effectively. The easiest thing to fix is to have someone not necessarily a medic to be accountable for communicating with patients about planned treatment and why things are taking so long. We sat in the same bay for 2 days with no information on planned treatment, when we put the complaint in my relative was assessed properly, her tests results analysed and she was deemed fit enough to go home and discharged. This should not have taken 2 days. Why did someone not think hey lady in bay 15 has been here a long time let’s have a look at what needs to be done.

If that was the case (and I don't know how you can be so sure it was), I think it's the call handler's responsibility to absolutely confirm the situation. That's literally their job.

Sick of these threads slagging off the NHS when they are in really dire straits after being run down deliberately for the last 14 years.

In 2009 you could get a GP appointment, or an ambulance, or seen in A&E.

The situation today is a government choice.

Oh here we go 🙄

Nobody here is running down the NHS. And the situation is a bit more nuanced than "evil Tories".

I needed a prescription for a health condition I have. It wasn't on repeat so I needed an appointment to get it. No appointment for a few days in a row phoning at 8. Got rather urgent. Told to phone 111. So I do that and had to go through the process of answering all the questions they say it's urgent go to hospital I said no it's not these symptoms are explained by my condition I just need a prescription. They say ok well a dr will phone you. I had 3 drs phone me!! The first one had booked me an appointment with my normal GP so the second two was just a waste of time resources. And of course I have to physically go into my gp for this appointment to say please give me the prescription it's not on repeat and should be and please put on repeat going forward. He said ok. Took 30 seconds. So many drs time wasted. And I had my snot nosed toddler with me with a nasty cough spewing his germs around the waiting room to boot

'More nuanced' - what bollocks.

You run a service down, it gets run down.

It’s interesting to hear from people at the ‘chalk face’ so to speak. It seems to confirm what I’ve thought, which is that there is considerable waste and mismanagement and a lack of efficiency and joined up thinking.

Obviously medical practitioners aren’t necessarily the best people to manage budgets and finance, but the senior ones anecdotally at least, do seem to have a high opinion of themselves. Do they perhaps ignore those who are less exalted.

If those who are paid to run the organisations are useless at it, what can be done to improve the situation. I’ve heard so many times, that patients are ready for discharge, but poor communication prevents a speedy discharge, so beds are blocked, medication doesn’t get to the right person and everyone is hanging around.

You'd hope that managers would have the right training to manage budgets efficiently and to be able to overrule clinicians if they’re being arrogant and unreasonable. The fact that it isn’t happening is an expensive, wasteful and potentially dangerous disgrace.

That's appalling, and in this day and age, really unnecessary.

I needed a prescription when I had a bad attack of Meniere's a few weeks ago. I submitted an e-consult request at 7.30am, and asked if it would be possible for them to issue a prescription for the medication for it.

At 8.20, I got a text from one of the GPs saying they'd issued an electronic prescription for the meds and sent it to the pharmacy they have on record as my regular pharmacy. I picked it up from the pharmacy around 10, and was fine by lunchtime.

My surgery uses an off the peg online system called Anima, maybe you should suggest your surgery gives it a try!

Did you ring back and say you no longer required an ambulance? If not why not? You were in the system as requesting an ambulance. They sent one.

My experience in hospital would be that if they got off their bums and walked round the wards they might find several magically “just emptied” beds. Having said that 3 overnight is pointless. In the day absolutely.

Flaming hell!

Just ignoring all the posts about inefficiency and poor management huh?

Call handlers are not clinically trained so are not really expected to know the difference between mottling and a rash.

Plus, of course, they have no idea if the person they are speaking to does.

@RickyGervaislovesdogs that’s exactly the sort of waste, which is inexcusable and criminal. Does no one care?

@Dinneronmybfpillow yes, thank you. It's all well and good to say "don't call an ambulance, drive them there" but when your child can't breathe it's not ideal to then drive to the hospital in that state, especially after being told to call an ambulance by medical professionals who I trust over some anonymous person on Mumsnet telling me not to! Also, like you said, if he'd been given steroids at home we'd have been able to stay at home putting less pressure on a&e.

Sorry to be clear - it’s 3 posts to cover all the nights/holidays so one band 8 a night.

the bed manager goes round the wards checking there really are no empty beds!! This is truly a post that is not needed.

@NewName24 sorry I didn't clarify in op, the phone call ended with DH saying "ok we'll take him in ourselves then because we can't wait that long" and the operator confirmed which hospital we were going to (not entirely sure why) so I'm really not sure why an ambulance was then despatched.

You can complain all you like but the NHS will respond that they’ve “learned from it” and “reflected” ( their fave word!) but it’ll happen again and again and again …
Its so big, with so many hangers on that there is no one to take responsibility ( except for frontline doctors and nurses will often get hauled over the coals for the slightest error, or get blamed for others’ shortcomings)

It’s become a disaster !

We had similar, but the 111 operator told me a doctor would call. I waited for the call, none came. DD's fever came down on its own and we went to sleep.

4am I get banging on my door - the operator had called an ambulance without telling me and it had been waiting outside for 20 minutes.

@PostItInABook thank you for clarifying, glad to know it doesn't happen too often. He's much better now thank you. Is it worth bringing this to someone's attention (I don't want to say complaint because that's not really what I want to achieve if you get what I mean, I understand things like this can happen) or is it likely to be a one off mistake? I just have the thought of wasted resources. Also the fact that if he were treated at home we probably wouldn't have needed to go to a&e and use their resources too.

@cassgate so sorry to hear that, I totally agree it just needs to be managed better. In all fairness our experience in a&e was very good, I can't complain about the treatment when we actually got there. Our children's department is brilliant and we're lucky for that

@LakeTiticaca because they'd told us they weren't sending one and we told them we were taking him ourselves. Why would I call again when we'd already confirmed that? That would be another waste of resources and time.

@Spoonthief that's a shame. A little bit more training probably would've done the trick. Probably a waste of time to mention it then I suppose.