Thinking about people and NHS in general

Callistemon21

BlueBelle

* Callistemon* of course she does but if she rings 999 she has to have a response they and I know it’s the wrong service but can do nothing different

You must have a very good ambulance service where you live, Bluebelle - I heard of an elderly woman who had an RTA not far from here, turned her car over and others went to help but no fire engine, no ambulance arrived. Others managed to get her out carefully and after 4 hours of waiting her family took her to hospital.

It's nothing to do with how 'good' the ambulance service is. When you have double the number of active jobs to ambulances/RRV's there is nothing you can do. Dispatchers do not have a magic wand.

sharon103

I agree BlueBelle. I watch the 999 and Ambulance programmes as well. Any medical programmes I find interesting.
I don't know if it's true but I've heard it costs £200 a time for an ambulance to come out.
I really don't know what the answer is.
It's the same with the A&E programmes I watch, I've thought in some cases a local doctor could have dealt with that surely but there again people can't get an appointment to see a doctor these days so it's a vicious circle.

About 6 years ago the cost of a double manned ambulance going out to a patient was around £275, if we took them to hospital it was around £350. With the price of diesel at the moment the cost will be skyrocketing now.

It's nothing to do with how 'good' the ambulance service is. When you have double the number of active jobs to ambulances/RRV's there is nothing you can do. Dispatchers do not have a magic wand.
So who decides that the tenth 999 call in a day is valid but an elderly woman rapped in a car turned on its roof with possible serious injuries is not LtEve?

btw were you a Lt in the Forces?

trapped, sorry

They have to answer which ever call comes in first callistermon it’s not about deciding who needs what most so if they drive 4 miles to a crank call while a genuine person is trapped in a car that is not anyones fault but the crank caller

But something does need to be done urgently to stop this continuing
Maybe Lt stands for little Eve

2 of my neighbours constantly phone for ambulances.
I've told them until I'm blue in the face that a high temperature isn't a medical emergency, but they treat it as if it is their own personal advice line.

BlueBelle

They have to answer which ever call comes in first callistermon it’s not about deciding who needs what most so if they drive 4 miles to a crank call while a genuine person is trapped in a car that is not anyones fault but the crank caller

But something does need to be done urgently to stop this continuing
Maybe Lt stands for little Eve

They don't here.

There is a triage system.
When I lay on the floor with a broken limb I was triaged on the phone. If I had been having a heart attack or stroke I would have been prioritised. As it was, they arrived more quickly than the 3 hours i was promised - but then the paramedics had to stay with me in the hospital corridor (even though I told them they could go, I'd be ok) before I saw a doctor briefly for an assessment, then they were allowed to go.

Perhaps Lt means little but to me Lt means Lieutenant, LtCdr is Lietenant Commander etc.

i have seen this on tv shows, it is not just ambulances, some firebrigade stations have the same problem, they have to answer any emergency and as someone said they can't block the number, they can call the police but i don't think there is much they can do other than warn them or charge them (but it would only be a fine). i don't understand why people do this.

Callistemon21

^It's nothing to do with how 'good' the ambulance service is. When you have double the number of active jobs to ambulances/RRV's there is nothing you can do. Dispatchers do not have a magic wand.^
So who decides that the tenth 999 call in a day is valid but an elderly woman rapped in a car turned on its roof with possible serious injuries is not LtEve?

btw were you a Lt in the Forces?

Calls are triaged by a series of questions written by a panel of highly qualified medical professionals, emergency department consultants etc to arrive at a priority by ruling out life threatening conditions, they arrive at either a Cat 4 which covers non injury falls and social issues, Cat 3 which is a 2 hour response time and covers falls with injuries, RTC's with conscious patients with no catastrophic bleeding plus lots of other conditions, Cat 2 which is the heart attacks, sepsis, strokes etc which is an 18 minute response time or a cat 1 which is the cardiac arrests, choking, actively fitting patients which get a 7 minute response time. This is not an exhaustive list of conditions but an overview.

Obviously it will always be open to mistakes, either the person doesn't give the right information or they fake information (say they have chest pain or are struggling to breath when they're not) but the call handler can only go on what they are told.
Also if they haven't got a resource available because they're already on jobs then there is nothing they can do but put out a general broadcast for someone to clear ASAP. There is nothing more demoralising than hearing the desperate calls for a crew when you're stuck waiting outside a hospital or on a lower priority job that you can't just walk out of. There are just not enough ambulances.

By the way, LtEve is a nod to the heroine of one of my favourite series of books written by J D Robb, the Eve Dallas books set in 2050 New York. I'm a big reader and this seemed like a good choice when thinking of a user name which was fairly anonymous.

Thanks LtEve for your explanations which I assume are relevant for the whole of the UK.

Yes, I could have said I was breathless because I was through pain and anxiety.

I don't know those books, they sound interesting although I am more into historical novels.

They do use a slightly different triage system in some parts of the country but the timescales are government mandated. Most trusts are moving over to our system gradually but, as with all things, change costs money.

I love a good detective novel generally but occasionally read historical fiction although I prefer 1920's -30s rather than anything older. I have read and enjoyed all the Georgette Heyer books.

I was home alone when I had my recent medical episode. I called my son who called an ambulance (he feared I’d had a stroke), but he also hopped into his car and drove the 30 minutes to my house. The ambulance service initially gave him a 5 hour wait time, reduced to between 2/3 hours when he explained it might be a stroke (difficult for both him and the call handler because he wasn’t with me to describe my symptoms). Fearing the wait for an ambulance was too long my son drove me to the hospital himself. Because I was not brought in by ambulance I was admitted to an A&E cubicle (they allowed my husband to stay with me because I was too confused to be left alone) but then left me to wait until my husband reminded the staff that I was a query stroke patient and might be in need of a urgent treatment. He said that prompted a very quick response then.

Calendargirl

Don’t know what the answer is. When I was young, if you saw an ambulance, it was because of a road accident or similar, they didn’t seem to be used the same as nowadays.

When my dad collapsed with a heart attack at home, this was 50 years ago, we called the GP, not an ambulance! How times have changed.

Would charging people make a difference?

Just as an aside, my daughter, in Australia, pays $94 for a GP appointment. For her and her children.

Makes you think.

I am alive today and still have a healthy heart because an ambulance was called when I had a heart attack. The paramedics started preparing me for surgery in the ambulance and I had a stent fitted within an hour of the initial call. Apparently, I have no damage to my heart because I was treated within 90 minutes.

If you think you're having a heart attack don't ever hesitate to call 999. Don't waste precious time with a GP or dialling 111.

Iam64

sharon103 I hope my post didn’t read as dismissing or judging mental health problems. It wasn’t intended in that way. Im aware of the devastating impact of mental health on the sufferer and their loved ones

Apologies to you Iam64. if I seemed a bit sharp. No i didn't take it the wrong way. I feel awful now.
It's just that the subject is close to my heart as I've had a couple of friends taken their lives, two close family, our mum twice attempted, eldest son attempted. A few other relatives with anxiety and myself with dreadful depression, anxiety and suicidal way back in 1994 owing to life's events.
I don't look for sympathy as I think it's made me stronger but I'm still an anxious person. I so wish I could educate the doctors.

Thank you for reading my post.

sharon103, no need to apologise, I posted quickly and could have been more careful in my wording. I agree with you that difficult life experiences, being close to people with m.h, illness and experiencing it ourselves does broaden our understanding and if we are fortunate, makes us stronger.

I also watch channel 4 24 hours in A & E.........it is disgraceful what some people go to A and E for......some sit laughing and joking with friends they've bought with them...one young man had 3 friends go in the treatment room with him, one carrying a box of fast food.! he said he thought he was having a heart attack..........nothing wrong with him except anxiety even though he was laughing.
people go

Lemsip, programmes like A and E and the police interceptors show demonstrate the nonsense our first responders deal with all the time. People hurling abuse, behaving in a provocative way obviously looking for a fight. I confess to almost cheering when a huge German shepherd dog was brought out to menace one idiot. Great restraint by the young officers (and the dog)

I remember apologising to one paramedic in case I'd called them out unnecessarily and he said "Don't worry, with what your husband's got he's an absolute priority" He was suffering from Multiple Myeloma and Heart Failure. It was pre Covid and we were always very lucky with ambulances, a couple of times I hardly had time to put the phone down before they were on the doorstep!

Many years ago I was sitting in A&E with a sprained ankle when a couple came in with a screaming toddler who had been scalded. They were closely followed by the ambulancemen that they had decided not to wait for. The ambulancemen were furious because they could have been treating the child on the way into hospital instead of which she had been bundled into a car, probably risking infection and permanent scarring.

The new hospital for my area has pleaded with people not to attend the A&E unless absolutely necessary as they are so busy. Also, having built this new hospital and closing some of the others, the roads from where I live are often flooded and unpassable. They are also, in some parts, narrow with no possible overtaking.

At the moment, the Fire Stations can also send people with defibrillators if there is suspicion of a heart attack, etc. I would have thought that there could be a system of having volunteer/care workers who could attend to people who are known to have mental health problems. They could then alert the ambulance service if there was a bigger issue that needed a paramedic. A bit like the Samaritans with transport. Obviously this would need funding but it would take the pressure off the Ambulance Service who need to give life and death service. We also need more ambulances, paramedics and space in A&E to take people. My mother has sat outside a hospital in an ambulance for hours before she could get moved into the corridor of A&E. The ambulance staff couldn't leave her until she was "handed over" formally so for 4 hours that ambulance was out of action. That is completely ridiculous.

Times I have been taken to hospital by ambulance is when my gp was so worried about my condition she called the ambulance to the surgery. Other times I’ve been filtered through 111 and the ambulance has arrived very quickly

Because the NHS is free at the point of use it gets abused. The number of hospital and GP non attendances for appointments is horrendous and people attending A & E with minor ailments because they’ve no simple painkillers etc. in the house.

I have just spent 8 days in hospital following a knee replacement and the care I have received was AMAZING WITH BELLS ON! From the surgeon to the doctors, nurses, therapists, cleaners and catering staff. So kind, caring and professional. 95% were immigrant workers who quite frankly we couldn’t survive without. However on my day of discharge I was told I’d be going home that day and it too 9+ hours for the hospital pharmacy to send my 2 items. This is an area that needs seriously looking at as it just blocks the turnover of beds. A discharge lounge is not the answer when orthopaedic patients are still in quite a lot of pain and discomfort. This was an outrageous and cruel treatment of patients.

Re Bluebells comments about her neighbour calling ambulance up to ten times a day. I’m the early hours of Tuesday morning I was called out to my mothers care home as she had fallen. They covered her up and put a pillow under her head but kept her on the floor. She stayed there from 2.15 am until an ambulance arrived at 8.00 am. A long time for a 102 year old. The paramedics were actually very annoyed especially as a qualified nurse at the hone had checked her over and said she hadn’t broken anything. She was taken into hospital where I remained with her until 3.30 pm she had to have blood tests as the dr ssid lying in the floor such a long time causes toxins in the blood. A CT scan was also arranged. My point is that someone constantly calling for the ambulance service to attend prevents them attending others. Someone needs to speak to this person and explain. I guess if she was required to pay it May soon stop. Incidentally I spoke with the regional manager of the care home to ask why my mother lay on the floor for several hours. I was told it’s their policy and unless a dr agrees to allow them to be put on top of their bed nothing they can do. I do think a bit of common sense would help in a situation like this but of course the culture of suing is their first thought.

BlueBelle

This is a bit of a follow on from the lady who felt she couldn’t get a Gp appointment

GPs although not back to normal are still fully working . 111 is working and is a very good filter 999 is working we might be in a bit of a pickle but it’s all still there you just have to be a bit insistent, and help ourselves too if you cant get a GP keep trying If an ambulance will take too long , use a friend/ neighbour/ colleague, take a taxi We Brits don’t like asking for help and I m counting me in that too we are too stiff upper lip sometimes for our own good then have a good old moan that no one helps

But

something that has bugged my brain for a while is something radical MUST be done about multiple time ambulance callers I have a neighbour obviously mentally unwell although perfectly ok to talk to who rings the ambulance numerous times a day they can be there ten or more times in a day
I have watched the 999 TV programmes and sometimes half the day is taken up with callers who call 9/10/15 times a day
This is clogging up the system dreadfully and using the ambulances ( and the police) unnecessarily and leaving very ill people out on a limb

What’s the answer to this one ! There must be an answer do other countries have this problem ?
What do you think ?

What people don't also realise is that, every time an ambulance is called, the patient's GP surgery is billed for it.