97 Yr old Gran waiting 8 hours for an ambulance with a broken hip!

[LoveCherryTree]

My Gran, 97 years of age, given to this country in World War, paid her taxes and NI all her life. She fell today in her home at 12pm, she has a broken hip, my Father called 999 and it is now 8pm and still no ambulance.
She can’t go to the loo as she can’t get up, my Father who has Parkinson’s and my Uncle, who has throat cancer, both in their 70’s, sitting with her.
This country is broken beyond repair, I even tried to get a private ambulance and they said that it won’t make a difference because all the front line ambulances are sat at the hospital with patients inside because they can’t get them into the hospitals….I despair, so it’s better for my 97 year old Gran to be in agony and wet herself, I just can’t believe it! Anyone know a member of parliament I can talk to about this? I’m utterly disgusted!

It was. I'm 40 and I remember when I was 6 years old with appendicitis sitting in a&e for 9 hours and sitting on the floor because it was so busy. I then had my urgent emergency appendectomy delayed because the ambulances were backed up down the main road and they needed to get through those first. It's been bad for a really long time regardless of who is in government.

"Years ago I used to volunteer in a geriatric hospital (late 70s when I was a St John Ambulance cadet in my teens). Maybe they could be brought back along with more cottage hospitals for convalescence. The bulk of the nursing staff needn't be so qualified as there wouldn't be so much acute care so staffing costs could be lower.

I don't know. I'm just thinking aloud. I may be talking bollocks."

I am not a HCP but I agree surely this might be the sort of thing we should be looking at @CharlotteStreetW1

Decent convalescence care as part of social care.

i had to phone an ambulance for my child last night and there were 411 active calls and approximately a 12 hour delay.. I hope she gets one soon x

It’s been dreadful for years but until you experience it with a loved one it’s just a number. Seeing an elderly relative on the floor for hours on end is very distressing for them and whoever is with them. It’s not a new problem but that still doesn’t make it acceptable.

If there isn't an ambulance then there just isn’t. Once she’s in A&E the care won’t be any better.

My FIL fell and broke his pelvis and ankle on his one good leg. He was disabled and already had one leg with no feeling (after radiation treatment as a child). So no good legs and completely immobile. Once in A&E they left him alone in a side room to go to the toilet in a bottle and he fell off the bed! I had to get a police officer who happened to be in the corridor to pick FIL up as the nurse just stood there like a wet blanket not knowing what to do.

A few months later he fell and broke his back. The staff spent 3 days moving him around, sitting him up and laying him down. Finally after 3 days they gave him a scan and said “Oh you have a broken back. No wonder you told us you were in pain.” They’d only been giving him paracetamol despite him being already prescribed much stronger pain killers on a daily basis by his GP for his already crumbling spine. They refused to give him his regular meds. His blood pressure skyrocketed.

He was released and dumped in the middle of his kitchen by 2 ambulance men who just left. They’d left his lifeline controller out of reach and he couldn’t reach his phone. I just happened to turn up to check on his house and found him there, freezing cold in his dressing gown and bare feet. We rang the GP and a nurse came and said he shouldn’t have been discharged. Discharge form said he’d been diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer but the hospital didn’t tell him or his family or his GP! This was 3 years ago now. The NHS isn’t just on its knees as people keep saying, it’s gone way beyond that.

I took it into my head to ring for a taxi to get me to hospital when I suddenly developed symptoms which I ,as a retired nurse, knew were very dangerous.
I had heard nightmare stories about waits for ambulances.
The taxi came n about 5 minutes, got me straight to the nearest hospital in 10 minutes.My medical knowledge was right, I had a large pulmonary embolism in one lung which was making it's way across to the other one.This condition killed my sister almost instantly.
If I had rung for an ambulance and explained my symptoms it may have come quickly but it may have not.I was not prepared to take any chances as was alone in the house.
I might not have been here now typing this.

So that was in 1988, under the Tories?

The Blair government improved the NHS massively. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/reports/high-performing-nhs-review-progress-1997-2010

Then the Tories got in and Lansley "reformed" the NHS at a cost of billions of pounds.

This is the norm op. I'm so so sorry, you must feel awful but no worse than your poor dear nan x

There is no private ambulance. The war and taxes aren't really the issue here as she just needs to be assessed.
How do you know she has broken her hip if she hasn't been assessed yet?
Why are you going on about writing your Mp instead of how to get your gran more comfortable?
You can call the ambulance service back with updates eg she is cold,incontinent etc etc yo expedite

That's terrible! And I thought it's only in Canada that healthcare is bad. I hope she's being taken care of by now!

It's really a pot luck shit show. I know my hospital somehow copes much better than the one I grew up next too in a deprived town.

I was just saying my teen unfortunately prayed you have a massive heart attack is possibly a good outcome

"Years ago I used to volunteer in a geriatric hospital (late 70s when I was a St John Ambulance cadet in my teens). Maybe they could be brought back along with more cottage hospitals for convalescence. The bulk of the nursing staff needn't be so qualified as there wouldn't be so much acute care so staffing costs could be lower.

Depends who they are looking after and what their needs are. Bringing someone a cup of tea and a meal is easy but most geriatic caring is much more skilled.

For example, caring for anyone bedbound or with dementia is a skilled job that to be done well needs training, experience and most of all needs to be done with actual care. Too many people working in the sector don't have any of these criteria including a poor grasp of English which itself can cause death:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-67622479

I'm posting this to the memory of Barbara Rymell in the hope getting people to remember her and her story may improve things for everyone.

A woman died after getting trapped under a stair lift with her care staff unable to tell 999 what had happened because they could not speak English well enough, an inquest has heard.

She was pronounced dead upon arrival of paramedics, who did not know the severity of the incident when the first 999 call was made.
The coroner noted that the carer did not appear to understand the difference between "bleeding" and "breathing", as well as "alert" and "alive".
The coroner said care staff must speak English well to prevent further deaths.

You put developed in the quotes. I think we all know what you meant.

My child choked and they said 6 hour wait for ambulance, go to hospital by car. My dad collapsed with chest pains, they said 6 hour wait, go to hospital by car. I don't know what kind of cases get these ambulances.

Actually my next door neighbour died suddenly (but predictably due to terminal illness) and the ambulance came pretty quickly for that. Maybe their priorities are wrong. I mean it was obviously very upsetting for his relatives and did justify help but it must have been prioritised well above someone alive and suffering for an ambulance to come within a few minutes

"you see there is a terrible shortage of beds"

Uttered by the actor playing the doctor in a Steptoe and Son episode Upstairs Downstairs Upstairs Downstairs, from 1974
NINETEEN SEVENTY FOUR!

Something needs to be done to assist the elderly . When we were waiting in critical care 90% of those waiting were 80 +.
I don't know whether them being treated at home would be better but I can see how this demographic dominates hospital need .

I am so sorry OP this is awful. All you can do is keep calling and keep her as warm and comfortable as is possible. Generally ambulances and A&E are awful at the moment and that is before the winter really hits. The reality is that emergency care is under such stress that it is near collapse.

I went into hospital a good few times after that and it was shit then too. What I'm saying is it doesn't matter when/who etc. The NHS is poorly run, not enough staff, facilities etc and too many people. That's the part that needs to change. Less managers, more doctors, more buildings/more vehicles.

We had these convalescence homes and cottage hospitals for years.Thatcher's government closed them down and sold them off.Many of the large convalescence homes are now luxury hotels, wedding venues and conference centres.The majority of patients loved going there.

Elderly people falling is a huge issue.

I sometimes wonder if its partly that no one seems to use canes etc any more? My grandparents always had walking sticks. Also maybe older people going to the shops etc alone who in the past would have been taken by daughters who didn't work but now do.

I work with patient flow and our hospital and those around have no room. So there are no beds, which means patients in ED can't move upstairs and inevitably ambulances queue outside and then can't attend new calls.
We were in a minus for predicated admissions today and there were over 100 people waiting for an ambulance to go to them at 4pm.

There's so many reasons for this but yes we are in an absolute mess

That's so frightening, luckily you had that knowledge .

My close relatives last trip to hospital also began with a 7 hour wait in an ambulance. This was about 7 years ago.
He never came out and died in there.
It's why I'm all for assisted dying.

People think terminal ill elderly people goto a hospice and die gently with morphine and music.
No.

They die in these hospitals with all this incompetence still going on people are declaring.

No magic happens just because someone is dying. They die in this shit.

Still no ambulance! I just don’t even know what to say!