Ambulance service 'operating at its limits'

[Chippy_Tea]

Some heart-breaking stories on 5 liver today about the ambulance service, one paramedic who has been in the job 37 years says he has never known it to be this bad and people are leaving the job in droves due to the state the NHS is in.

One caller said why not bring back something similar to the cottage hospital where you can go if you have something non life threatening so as not to tie up hospital staff, sounds like a good plan to me.


Patients 'hugely let down'
The BBC has found reports of numerous serious incidents.
Cases involve both waits for crews to reach patients, as well as delays when ambulances arrive at A&E but spend hours queuing outside, because the hospital is too overcrowded to accept the patient.
Margaret Root, 82, waited nearly six hours for an ambulance to come following a stroke, and she then waited for another three hours outside hospital.
When she was finally admitted, her family was told it was too late to give her the drugs needed to reverse the effects of the stroke.
Her granddaughter Christina White-Smith said her grandmother had been "hugely let down".
She said she did not blame the staff because they were "amazing" when they got to her grandmother, but said she is angry the NHS is not getting the help it needs.
"I don't think people are aware of the severity of the situation."
Details have also emerged of a 66-year-old man who spent four hours lying face down on the floor at home with a punctured lung.
And in another case a man waited nine hours for help to arrive following a stroke one evening last month. His family called six times before a response finally arrived the following morning.

Ambulance service 'operating at its limits'
Richard Webber, a spokesman for the College of Paramedics and a working paramedic, said the waits patients were experiencing were "unacceptable".
"We have members who have been working for 20, 30 years, and they have never before experienced anything like this at this time of the year.
"Every day services are holding hundreds of 999 calls with no-one to send.
"The ambulance service is simply not providing the levels of service they should - patients are waiting too long and that is putting them at risk."


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59237935

 

[devexwarrior]

Ain't the only service on its bootstraps.

 

[Nicks90]

Right, bit of a rant here and I apologise if I offend anyone or suchlike and will completely understand if the mods remove my post.

1 Million calls for an ambulance in a month?
Are we seriously saying 1 in 70 people in this country had a medical emergency so critical that they needed an ambulance to take them to hospital? Really? I mean reaaaalllllllly????? 1 in 70 people were on the verge of Dying and needed emergency care at the roadside in a converted transit and blues+twos to A&E in one month? Wtf? Is everyone walking about juggling chainsaws whilst on crack all of a sudden?
Sorry but they just don't. It's utter ballcocks from an over privileged society expecting the unattainable. I drove myself to A&E when I cut my finger off. I didn't need a damn ambulance! What for? Even if you don't think you are safe to drive with whatever 'condition' or 'ailment' you have, unless you are spurting meat and juices everywhere, get a f%@#ing taxi!!! I can guarantee it'll be quicker than a sodding ambulance, and unless you need someone to jump up and down on your chest whilst getting to hospital, a taxi or your own car will be much more pleasant.


Now I will quantify this complete rant with my own personal experience from Friday and Saturday this week with my daughter.
School rang on Friday at 1pm to say she had had a bad fall playing rugby and it looked like she had broken her wrist. Please come pick her up and take her to hospital.
So off I trot and collect said daughter, wrist swelling up a good un and take her to Dewsbury A&E. They are queuing across the car park just to get to the A&E reception!
So being cheeky I went to the front and asked how long they had been in the queue. 2.5 HOURS! Just to get to the reception.
Told daughter and her response was 'screw that, take me home dad'. So we left.
Yes, we left even with a potential broken wrist. As I would imagine the wait inside would be triple that and she just couldn't bothered. [note. Last time she broke her wrist she refused a pot and just used a metal brace post surgery wrist support, which the ortho doc said would work just as well]
Anyway, fast forward 6 hours and she's got a bit of a sweat on and really feeling it and we decide to try again, but this time at 7am Saturday morning.
Turn up and only 2 people in front of us at reception. One was complaining he had cut his finger with a kitchen knife 4 days ago and his finger was still sore.
The one directly in front had a toothache. I sh!t you not. People where going to A&E at 7am Saturday morning with a mildly infected cut and toothache!!!!!
Luckily Dewsbury were extremely efficient and sorted daughter out in about 2 hours, (buckle fracture and she's reusing the same medical brace as last time, so no pot again)

But seriously, why aren't A&E turning people like this away? You haven't accident-ed yourself and it's not a fekkin emergency, so go home. Go see a pharmacist or go have an over the phone consult with your nurse practitioner or gp.
A&E is not....i repeat NOT.... A gp drop in health centre.
Send them home or charge them. Problem solved.
I am appalled at the people that I inhabit this country with. We used to be self sufficient, resourceful and self reliant. Now we have 1million people calling for an ambulance every month and people with toothache thinking it's worthy of ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY.

I honestly despair.

 

[devexwarrior]

^ I hope your daughter is recovering well. Many moons ago, before I joined the Army, I had a job at a hospital as a clerk in the X-Ray dept. Monday morning was heaving because no one went to A&E on their own time when they could do it in work time. Most of them shouldn't have been there.

I spend so much time in A&E as a copper that I get invited on their Christmas pub-crawls. I don't tend to go as medics on the pi$$ are bloody animals!!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I am appalled at the people that I inhabit this country with. We used to be self sufficient, resourceful and self reliant. Now we have 1million people calling for an ambulance every month and people with toothache thinking it's worthy of ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY.

As one person who phoned 5 Live said we need the old cottage hospitals back this would take the strain off A&E.

 

[johncrobinson]

Yes all gone now.

A LOCAL hospital is a big,big assurance to folk in need of help
A 20-50 mile drive does not give the same confidence.(If you ARE in a fit state to drive)

When you need help, you need it.!!!

Staff in these mega-hospitals are worked ragged.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

As one person who phoned 5 Live said we need the old cottage hospitals back this would take the strain off A&E.

Same old issue though, who will staff them?

Down here in Cornwall my wife employs people to clean holiday cottages on £15/h , far more than an hca or nurse starting out will get. Why put yourself through the stress and debt?

 

[HSD]

Same old issue though, who will staff them?

Down here in Cornwall my wife employs people to clean holiday cottages on £15/h , far more than an hca or nurse starting out will get. Why put yourself through the stress and debt?

That’s good money for Cornwall!
Ambulance service absolutely knackered from what my mate tells me. Absolute mess back home, Truro hospital is rammed to the gills, as is the much smaller Bodmin, Newquay beds are blocked basically, you can’t get through to a GP let alone see one and several of the Care companies have ceased trading, at the same time thousands of houses being built and seemingly no thought given to infrastructure! People are really struggling and not much better up here! Likewise difficult to get hold of a GP, we have a “walk-in” centre but they tell you to see your GP or go to A&E! somethings got to change.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

That’s good money for Cornwall!
Ambulance service absolutely knackered from what my mate tells me. Absolute mess back home, Truro hospital is rammed to the gills, as is the much smaller Bodmin, Newquay beds are blocked basically, you can’t get through to a GP let alone see one and several of the Care companies have ceased trading, at the same time thousands of houses being built and seemingly no thought given to infrastructure! People are really struggling and not much better up here! Likewise difficult to get hold of a GP, we have a “walk-in” centre but they tell you to see your GP or go to A&E! somethings got to change.

Tell me about it!

Mate is a paramedic, spent 9 hours of a 12 hour shift waiting outside a+e. Spoke to a lady who'd waited 23 hours. People have died or have suffered life changing injuries because of how long they are waiting to be seen.

I work in the nhs, and without wanting to get into trouble I can tell you that the hospitals in the SW are in a terrible state.

The main problem is not though the numbers of people attending a+e, it's just that there are large numbers of people in hospital who cant get home because of the lack of social care.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Same old issue though, who will staff them?

The same nurses that triage at A&E, they need to separate Emergency and non life threatening injuries and educate people so they go to the right place.

Too many people use A&E as a shortcut to see a doctor and it needs to be stopped.

 

[pilgrimhudd]

The same nurses that triage at A&E, they need to separate Emergency and non life threatening injuries and educate people so they go to the right place.

So who triage in A&E?

Yes they do.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

So who triage in A&E?

If they were to open more cottage style hospitals they would need to recruit more nurses as the Tories have made a u turn on foreign HGV drivers due to the shortage they may do the same for qualified nurses.

 

[EsterBanana]

I've not had a GP for years now, absolutely useless, actually worse than useless - repeatedly breaking the Hippocratic Oath, specifically the part that says something like "First do no harm" by prescribing medications that made the everything worse and also pushing statins hard!

I use the internet, common sense (don't get carried away thinking you have cancer every time you have a pain), Ayurvedic medicine and most importantly of all, regular exercise and eating reasonably well - by this I mean I eat nothing my Grandparents would not have had. Well I break it sometimes, because that's life, but as a general rule I find this works very well. Also avoid anything that comes in plastic foil - that stuff is generally not good.

Of course this doesn't help anyone who is not healthy and I really feel for anyone going through difficult times and wish them well... I wish there was something I could do.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

Hmmmm. How many million pounds were written on the side of Johnson's bus in 2016?

 

[johncrobinson]

I dont wish to be political, But without the NHS half the population would be stuffed,!!

Middle age would be "Buy Buy" time.

 

[Irishwizard]

I dont wish to be political, But without the NHS half the population would be stuffed,!!

Middle age would be "Buy Buy" time.

The NHS is knackered and Covid has shown its frailties. Ive had some recent great service from the NHS but when you break you leg in 2 places and they tell you to go back to work, you know something is wrong. A colleague of mine smashed his ankle and was miss treated - he now needs a joint replacement, and got a huge financial settlement - but will still NEED a joint replacement when he is older. Its pretty rubbish at times.

 

[johncrobinson]

Sadly I agree with you
I often think of the reaction i would get with all the metal inserted into me in an internatiol airport.

 

[johncrobinson]

Hi ester
A good doctor is worth a fortune.
That said I came off 11 drugs a day.
All I take now is painkilles.

 

[EsterBanana]

GPs are not and never really have been any part of the NHS, they are quite separate things and GPs are private business.

If you are sat down and not currently of a nervous disposition you might like to have a read of this, it will help explain why the service you receive from GPs varies so much and why it is dwindling to the point of non-existence, as is de rigeuer with the neo-liberals, it's yet another racket:

https://keepournhspublic.com/but-arent-all-gps-private-anyway/
Interesting that private business is the gatekeeper for access to NHS services...

 

[johncrobinson]

Well Doctors men/women have families who need feeding until they can be sent off to " uni",