So upset! (Ambulance and elderly neighbours)

Quite likely they had another call to answer and, as others have stated, confidentiality.

Absolutely it is confidentiality. They cannot share anything. They don't know you. Their priority is the health and the privacy of their patient

don't feel bad.
they were doing their job, and you were trying to be helpful.
if it happens again, just ring your neighbours and say,
i was worried when i saw an ambulance outside. how's things.

It would be both confidentiality and to protect the patient. You said you were friends, but they only have your word for that. It's a sad fact that they have to err on the side of caution, but it is true.

I was with a friend at her house when an ambulance was needed and they still asked the patient if she was OK with me being there and going to the hospital with her as although I was her carer and she was mine, we weren't next of kin and we didn't live at the same address. They took my details and listed me, with my friends consent, as her carer.

Keep being a good neighbour and friend. As others have said, see if you can have the sons telephone number so you have a contact should one be needed.

Surely, you could have just stood there and watched which house they went to, that's what my neighbours do if they see an ambulance near our houses, then if they're seen coming into my house, they stay outside and ask me if I'm OK as I'm being wheeled past into the ambulance.

I don’t think you need to be very upset the NHS in all it’s forms have very strict codes of confidentiality and those guys could have lost their jobs by telling you
I don’t understand if you went out to speak to them you didn’t pop next door after they d gone to see if everything was ok !
But you know now so just carry on being a good neighbour

A few years ago I had a friend in hospital whom I visited. I arrived one day to see her and was told by staff that she had been transferred. “Ok .... I said, where to?”. They wouldn’t tell me ... confidentiality! I couldn’t find where she was and was she having any visitors I wondered.
All was revealed when she was discharged home.

Thanks for replies. Should have realised before asking the PMs that it was a confidentiality issue. They weren’t to know that dh and I are first port of call for help with all sorts.

I wasn’t really upset for myself, but in case neighbour thought I must have seen the ambulance and wasn’t bothered. I’ve told her that another time I will just knock on the door anyway. She doesn’t like asking for help anyway, is always apologetic despite assurances that we’re happy to do it, but it’s become increasingly necessary as they’ve become more frail.