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.

So instead of going to see your gp, you wasted resources at AE instead? 🤦

Did you ring back after you first called to cancel the ambulance? If not, of course they'd come. You've caused the problem!

@Looneytune253

A person with breathing problems can be given some treatment at home & is much safer en route to hospital in an ambulance.

its only a waste when the call centre fucks up & that's not in the OP.

@TootYourOwnHorn it's sadly, not uncommon.

I'm going to reiterate this for those saying I shouldn't have called. I've been told by medical professionals on multiple occasions to call an ambulance, I won't be taking advice from anonymous people on Mumsnet over medical professionals. If I can't phone an ambulance for a child who can barely breathe then what on earth are they there for? I know to do cold air exposure, it didn't work. Usually the ambulance provides preliminary care that alleviates it enough to travel to hospital. They had no idea if I could drive, nor did they ask if I could get him there quickly. Also, if I didn't need an ambulance they wouldn't have despatched one at all.

This post wasn't about whether I should've called or not, it was about the mess of telling us there was no ambulance and then sending one anyway and blaming us for not being there.

I wish they'd bring back the ward sisters and matrons

there No way a 1950’s style matron would work now .
They used to rule with a rod of iron . Manage people like that now they all be off with stress and shouting bulling ( which is rife in NHS) and harassment

The nhs is hideously inefficient, I agree. Everyone thinks we need more doctors and nurses but if we designed what we already have really well, I bet we wouldn't need that many more.

@indianwoman I've already answered this question, they said there was none available so they couldn't send one and to take him ourselves, we said we would do this. Why would I then assume they were sending one after they said they weren't and we confirmed we'd take him? I'd love to see you explain how I caused a problem here.

You did the right thing. I've done the same for my child with croup as it was extremely scary. Fortunately an ambulance was sent very quickly, which they insisted on sending, even though we live quite close to an A&E.

H@Speckledpasta I agree, the doctors are usually amazing, the nurses have always been absolutely brilliant. Paramedics are always excellent too. It just seems like if it were managed better there'd be less problem. It's not the care you receive that's the problem, it's accessing it due to all the time that's wasted.

@bettyboo40 thank you. The last time he had it it was less severe, we called 111 for a gp call and steroid prescription but they told us they were going to send an ambulance as it's not worth a risk. We rarely go to the GP or hospital, we're not hypochondriacs, so if I need to call an ambulance for my child I will do so with no apologies. When your child can't breathe it's pretty obvious that you should call an ambulance. This is Mumsnet though, so even if I hadn't called an ambulance I'd still be in the wrong

Well that's just ridiculous. Why can't you just order another prescription from the doctor rather than going through this rigmarole? I have a minor condition, and my GP only wants to see me yearly so I get medication with two repeats, and when the repeats end I simply order another prescription online and it is sent to the pharmacy I choose, with another two repeats.

They told her to take DS in herself. Surely that in itself should suggest not to send an ambulance? In no way is this OP's fault!!!

This. This. This

You really really really do not want surgeons running your hospitals. I know you think it makes sense because of their clinical knowledge and clear intelligence given their station in life.

I am a senior manager in the NHS. I’ve heard surgeons refer to female patients as “mental” at every turn. I’ve seen them present business cases for £££ because they want the latest bit of kit their mate down the road has got (even when it reduces patient flow and capacity). I’ve heard them refer to the budget as “Monopoly money”, I’ve seen them rinse every last penny they can from “additional” sessions, I’ve seen and known surgeons not work any of their admin or SPA because they are in private clinics instead.

They are doctors. Not trained to manage budgets or flow or operational work at all

I have to say ALL my awful NHS experiences in the last few years could have been improved/fixed by better admin procedures and processes - they are shockingly bad

Oh, it's the 'sisters and matrons' bollocks again.

Some years ago, I, as an IT consultant (yes, I know, shoot me now) worked on a requirements-gathering exercise in a maternity department, in a major hospital, involving nurses, midwives, doctors and auxiliary staff. The idea was that it would overcome excessive management intervention and build a system designed for 'boots on the ground'.

I swear to god, it made herding cats look like a walk in the park: barely two of them could agree with the other on any topic (this was variously F2F interviews, working groups, anonymous surveys etc).

In the end, the whole project was scrapped, at enormous cost to the client.

What a fucking waste of time and money, essentially because of the unbelievable amount of politics and ego at floor level.

Having had that experience, I spend a lot of time making sure I don't get sick.

I came over lightheaded in my midwife appointment this week the room was so incredibly hot. They apologised and opened the external door and said the heating was either off or on full and so they have 6 months of each. Meanwhile as the radiators are all cranked up to the max and blasting heat straight out of the door they are cracking down on giving out urine pots and you have to wash and reuse or beg for a spare. Because every penny counts.

Welcome to defensive medicine! a lot resources wasted for fear of litigation.

Agreed, from my experience there were plenty of nurses but none of them seemed to be doing the job of really caring for patients. Yes, they did obs every few hours but didn’t interact with patients beyond that. They appeared busy but doing what exactly I am not sure. There was a lot of paper floating about being shuffled from one place to another and a lot of huddling around screens. There was absolutely no way I was going to leave my relative alone. There were patients who were alone and they were just left for hours without any interaction with anyone. I took my relative to the toilet myself, had to go on the hunt for a wheelchair. There was someone in the next bay who was ignored when he was shouting for help. We saw someone fall off a trolley in a corridor and 4 medics walked passed before my husband went and asked if someone was planning to help them. Writing it down makes it sound unbelievable but this really did happen.

They do have ward sisters/ charge nurses and matrons still. There’s just too many patients for a system set up for far fewer and not for lots of elderly people with multiple conditions. There were about 6 million over 65s when the NHS was set up. There are now more than 11 million.

I've worked in a clinical capacity in the ambulance operations centre before and suspect I know what happened on this call.

When call volume is low and there are plenty of ambulances then most emergency 999 calls will be sent an ambulance, some minor injs etc/broken wrist for example could still be told to make own way.

When call volume increases to a certain point/ambulances are depleted then stages are triggered where the threshold to make your own way is reduced and calls that would previously have resulted in ambulance response will now be asked if they can make own way. This makes sense in a safety point of view - if a child is having a severe croup episode and struggling with their breathing and an ambulance can be there in under 18 minutes then great it's worth waiting for. However due to the level of demand it's expected that ambulance could take 1-2 hours (which is actually very common), it makes sense to enquire if the parents can take the child themselves to A&E, most people live within 30mins of an A&E so even if there is a life threatening emergency occurring, if you can make your own way the risk is less than waiting for an ambulance that might not come in time.

Also the sooner you arrive in hospital the quicker you can access their expertise. For example, the treatment for a severe croup in a child is a single dose liquid steroid - most trusts do not carry this and is administered in hospital. The treatment for life threatening croup is nebulised adrenaline - paramedics are not authorised to administer this drug by this method. All we can salbutamol which only acts in the lungs (not the throat where croup acts when it's life threatening).

It's absolutely certainly not wrong to call 999 if you think your child is having a life threatening breathing problem and this is the advice any clinician would give to do. However already this year I've had to resuscitate a child who arrested waiting for an ambulance, if the parents had not called 999 and just put him in the car and gone to hospital we estimated they'd have arrived about 20minutes before he stopped breathing, it was very possible with prompt treatment in hospital he would have survived. We obviously didn't discuss this with parents as it's not their fault, but I know if my child was very unwell and needed to be seen in A&E as a Paramedic I absolutely wouldn't consider for 1 second calling 999. I'd just put them in the car and take them to the hospital. This way I would know they could be with Doctors within 20minutes from when I leave the house (if a child is very unwell they'll be seen straight away), as opposed to calling 999 and delaying care by a likely 1-2 hours.

I was at the hospital already, where I'd been told to go, and the A&E was in the next room. It takes weeks to get a GP appointment here even on the phone. Hardly useful for a fracture.

And I shouldn't have needed to see either, which is my point. I'd already had the X-rays, they shouldn't have made me do them all again.

NHS is wasting money left right and centre.

I have smear tests done at hospital as had bad experience the last time I had one done at my GP practice. Each time I am discharged from the gynae dept and i I need to be referred again by my GP which means wasting an appointment with them.

I have an eye condition of the cornea (keratoconus) and had a procedure done on both eyes at different times. They booked me into the minor ops room in the eye department's area. My cornea in my worst eye is too thin to have the procedure there. The letter sent was to go to the main operating suites area. I was then told it had been moved to the MOR. Yet on my notes it specified NOT to have the procedure in the MOR. So wasted a day off work (fortunately paid), affected my anxiety and was rescheduled for a date where a good number of colleagues were on holiday.

Another piece of advice. Do not have appointments for different depts in the same week! As your notes won't be available for the second appt - based on my experience, F&F and colleagues' experiences too. As it your records need to go back to the records office then taken out again.

How is that not managed by a computer system? A centralized investment in software and maintenance would be cheaper and faster than wasting people’s time with phone calls. Not just the staff making the calls, but the people having to answer them and say there are no beds available when they are busy with other tasks.

This 👏🏻