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!

Haven't read all the responses, so maybe someone else has already said this type of comment.... I'm a paramedic, have been for ten years, and I estimate 95% of calls I attend are so not worthy of an ambulance. Yes, a few are due to lack of GP appointments, more than a few are due to repeated mental health calls (as in someone calling 999 for an ambulance 20-30 times per month). However, so many are utter nonsense calls about things you wouldn't even bother a GP with, and others while possibly A&E worthy, are people choosing to travel there via ambulance rather than ask their partner, family etc to give them a lift, or go via taxi. IMHO, while there are clearly issues with the NHS, social care, etc. if people clearly abusing the ambulance part of the system in this way, stopped, then those needing it most would be far more likely to receive care in a timely manner. It's interesting to note than when us paramedics took strike action last year - and in reality, a skeleton service was still provided - the system was used in the way we all generally feel it should be, ie the vast majority of calls were emergencies, incl falls (if someone can't be moved for whatever reason, that's an emergency), and ambulances weren't taking hours to get to patients, or queued outside A&E depts. Think we need to reiterate to the general public what the ambulance service is actually designed for....

Yep, that's not at all what I said. There's too many people and not enough services. The increase in people living longer and more people coming into our country is compounding that. It's not an 'us and them' issue, don't try and make it out to be.

I appreciate that your job is stressful, but you shouldn't be so dismissive of families who are also at the end of their tether and can't cope with their relatives' care needs. If they are refusing to have them home it's usually because they are at breaking point with no support, or because having them at home has become dangerous. Properly funded social care is not available, which is no more the fault of patients and families than hospital staff. There are no winners here and making insulting value judgements about families isn't helpful.

To be fair, my mother is 88, born in 1936 and was 9 when the war ended. If the op's gran was born in 1926, she'd have been 19 and may well have served in WW2, if not in active service, easily from the age of 15 to join the many women who did what were then men's jobs to help with the war effort.

The public is as much to blame as governments and politicians. Even two or three years ago, if a MNetter dared criticise the NHS there was an almighty pile one. For decades the public have defended sub optimal services to defend the behemoth. Sadly, the public now has the service it deserves for worshipping the sacred cow.

It needs root and branch reform before it gets more money. Army of Equality Directors any one. My local A&E has a giant TV mounted on the wall, yet can't provide a digital screen to provide information about waiting times.

Is this in the UK? How do we call for a private ambulance (genuinely interested)? The only “private” ambulances I see are actually coroner vehicles picking up deceased.

I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s heartbreaking.

Welsh Ambulance are negligent.

Oh no, not this again :( I am so sorry, this really should not be happening.

I have a relative who works for SWAST (the ambulance trust here in the South West).
Like everywhere else our local hospitals often have long queues of ambulances outside waiting to offload patients and people have to wait ages for an ambulance.
But recently the bosses of SWAST, to save on staff wages, have drastically reduced the number of overtime shifts available. So there are loads of paramedics like my relative who want to pick up overtime to earn more, and there are ambulances sitting in the garage with no crews, because they won't pay overtime so that people who want to work can fill the empty shifts and crew those ambulances.

Quite often lately my relative has gone to work only to find they have no crewmate. They have to wait while control finds someone else at another station in the county who is also crewmate-less, then crew them up together so they can go out in an ambulance. Meanwhile several hours are wasted finding a crewmate and patients are waiting for an ambulance. Sometimes at night there's only one ambulance on the road in the whole county. The rest are either queuing at the hospital or missing crew. It's madness.

Regrettably, there is a chronic skills shortage in the UK and we desperately need highly skilled people to do jobs that the local populations can't. Many of those highly skilled people are immigrants. Hand in hand with NHS reform we need educational reform so we can grow our own highly skilled populations. Often the children of immigrants do exceptionally well compared to the children of working class whites.

My grandfather was an immigrant, my father was an immigrant, my grandmother's grandparents were immigrants. My grandfather served in WW2, my grandmother's father served in WW1, her brothers died in WW2. All immigrants or immigrant stock (as am I) but perhaps we don't count because we are white.

None of the wars since WWII have involved defending England.

They are all attacking or occupyijg other countries.

Children's A&E is no better, the country is in an appalling state. Wishing your grandmother a speedy recovery.

Too many people and not enough hospitals or Doctors.

@DoreenonTill8 Well yet another Government wants EVERYONE out at work. Ppl cant be in two places at once. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5218375-to-ask-for-opinions-on-the-get-britain-working-white-paper

And does the NHS put its money where its mouth is and let THEIR staff have time off work to care for their own elderly relatives!!!

Also increasingly older and elderly population.

This is awful. As well as your MP, I'd suggest you call the local press.

Rhabdomyolosis is a rare but life threatening condition. Elderly people left laying for prolonged periods on hard floors are at increased risk. It is an emergency. I'm sorry OP :(

@LoveCherryTree , a couple of days ago someone posted and I suggested that if they were to call an ambulance it would be an abuse of the service. Some of my posts including that one I believe were deleted by @Mumsnet many, many posters thought my comments unacceptable.
The NHS was created in and for a different time entirely and can no longer possibly cope with the demands on it. A conversation needs to be had about what we can reasonably expect from our NHS moving forward. I especially hope we are tough with waste and with those who abuse the service.
I wish your gran well, I miss mine who I lost 40 years ago so much.

Admittedly I was only about 10 years old with little interest in politics, but I do distinctly remember the news being constantly about people being left on trolleys in corridors for 24 hours+ and MRSA under labour. The ambulance wait times is definitely a Tory thing though - it's ludicrous that they have to sit outside the hospital with the patient for hours, unable to help anyone else.

This was my first thought too, surely it's better to keep people as old as 97 home and prescribed decent pain relief to keep them comfortable.

Elderly dogs and cats are given a more dignified end to their life than Elderly people.

The post where the OP needed gas & air to get into A&E and is still in hospital immobile receiving pain relief? Are you saying that you stand by your view that had an ambulance been sent for her it would have been an abuse?

@Schoolchoicesucks , indeed I am! The OP contacted 111 which was the correct thing to do and was told to go in but was not instructed to call an ambulance. She was taken by car to hospital. Calling an ambulance would have been an abuse of the service in these circumstances in my opinion.

Yep it’s absolutely ridiculous! I don’t see how it can get better tbh. It takes 5-10 years to build a hospital. Similar probably to train people? Ageing population and importing half a million people a year. We will never catch up. It’s a slum country.

And my mum recently passed away at 71 with a heart attack. She called 999 and was told it would be a 3 hour wait for an ambulance.

This is what happens when people lie about their symptoms.