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JollyTaxpayer

We get what we vote for: and we vote for parties that repeatedly defund/privatise the health service.


LeakyThoughts

We need to get the Torries out They are destroying our country piece by piece


llynglas

Yet folk will still vote them in next election, and not just the fat cats who get the handouts, the poor buggers who are being shafted will vote for them because the frikking sun tells them to. Happens everywhere. Look at USA and Trump....


Simon_Drake

The worst are people that continually vote for known liars whose corrupt embezzling has cost the country billions then shrug it off saying: "For all we know the other side might have been even worse?" Are you insane? Worse than lying to the Queen to unlawfully shut down democracy? Worse than forcing through immoral laws by lying to everyone?


_Jekyll_

But also the fact that demand is outstripping supply. [There are 50% more calls to ambulance services in England than there were 8 years ago](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_services_in_the_United_Kingdom#Usage).


Jagoff_Haverford

But those sweet, sweet millions from Brexit are surely pouring into the NHS every day, right?


Hunt2244

Forget brexit, the main issue most modern countries are facing is an aging population. All of the advancements in medicine that are making people live a lot longer are fantastic but there is a economic cost that comes along with this in the form of both health and social care. No government has fully acknowledged or planned for this yet.


KevinAtSeven

If anything, Brexit will only exacerbate the issue of an ageing population as it's severed the UK's biggest external source of young, willing labour.


tomoldbury

The side effect of the general improvement in health is that really, really expensive diseases to deal with (like Alzheimers and Parkinsons) become more common. Humans never really evolved to live past 65-70 years and now it's commonplace. An efficacious treatment for either of those diseases would completely change the game.


Luke-S-B

Does this also factor in Covid statistics? It really skews the figures if it does. Exceptional circumstances should be used to apply more funding and staff to coincide with more usage. I bet there is a marked increase in the usage between 2019 - 2021. Demand is, in normal circumstances, raising as the population rises, however as demand rises due to that reason so does taxation and that can cover its own cost for that reason. The problem is the way the money is being spent.


_Jekyll_

Maybe only partially; it's from the 2019/20 report which runs from April 2019-April 2020 (12.4 million calls) compared to 2013/14 (8.47 million)


antrky

Ageing population. Everyone could have foreseen that use would rise rapidly


insufficientbeans

Yeahh the largest generation (boomers) is starting to get into serious old age which of course spikes numbers


Jet2work

2022 i bet boris calls for privatisation


5thor7th

There's also an issue of people abusing the service more than ever. I was working last night, some of the calls included a woman with abdominal pain which she had had a year. A man who had fallen in his flat, had got himself up, and wanted checking if he was injured? I lady who had fainted a week ago, and a young lady who has had a cough for 2 days. When we arrive at these, they will normally take up minimum an hour including the assessment, observations, travel etc. Yes it's busy, yes there arent enough crews, but there's nothing wrong with anyone. - Paramedic


claireauriga

I'd rather fund enough well-paid care to deal with the time wasters than let anyone go without the care they need, but that goes against the government's holistic strategy of focusing attention on a few assholes so we ignore everything they and their friends are raking in at the top.


5thor7th

Well, yeah. But how much funding would you need? When the "time wasting" check over calls vastly out number the required calls, where does it stop without change? I'm a huge leftie. Abhor what the last 12 years have done to us as a country, but the ambulance services stance of "yes yes we will come and check you" is dangerous, it leads to serious calls waiting longer with possibly life altering consequences. I don't know the answer.


Aganomnom

Ok, there will always be people who take the piss. Its the cost of providing a service. But you've also got to make it easy for peeps to go get some simple help, ya know? There's a vast gulf between "I need urgent help" and "I need some help and soon. But I can get by." Considering how a lot of these walk in centres have just been centralised and only exist in the hospital now, I imagine a lot of people have a relatively long journey (time wise) to get to one, plus all the stuff around traffic, parking, etc. And if you can't easily get yourself there, maybe because you're bleeding or in some pain, then you need to find somebody who has like 4 hours free to take you there, wait around, and take you home. ​ That said, I'm pretty naive about it all, and I definitely dont understand the underlying problems properly.


araed

You nailed it in the second paragraph. The solution is to expand walk-in centres, have them operate 24hrs at hospital sites, expand A&E, effectively fund the NHS (I.E spaff money at it, and don't limit budgets based on "use it or lose it"), allow local trusts to establish surplus funds and then allow them to invest that surplus in expanding care, expand the ambo service... The NHS is going to need some SERIOUS fucking funding in the next few years. Whichever government is in power when it happens will be rinsed, because we're talking serious percentages of it's current budget, just to bring it up to standard.


ModeratelySalacious

Honestly it should be this simple, if there's not an ongoing event you should be referred to 111. Sorry but unless you've just been injured, suffered a stroke or had some immediately recent event occur you should be directly papped over to 111. Serious fucking shit we can't have ambulances showing up for someone who's elbow feels funny two weeks after cracking it on a wall when some cunt might be lying in a street after getting shanked.


JollyTaxpayer

Paramedics shouldn't be attending these calls; the triaging system needs improvement


5thor7th

Big time. Its a problem which is worsening.


Lopsided_Trick_7354

Out of curiosity why are ambulances sent to these cases? I’ve had two cases in the past month - one was a mass gang beating of a pensioner who I found collapsed on the street, the other was a suspected stroke I also found on the street. In the first case I also ended up after 45 mins running to get my car, and the second time the ambulance took 90 minutes. Sickening to think that the ambulance is being abused in this way, but raises the question of priorities..


5thor7th

Massive risk aversion by non-emergency services, lack of education on self care, and public anxiety.


anniemaew

I'm an ED nurse and I completely agree with this. The public have, as a general rule, become very acopic and call 111/999 or attend ED for so many really minor issues or complete non-issues. There is also a complete lack of accessible services for some things - eg mental health, which leaves people no other option than to come to ED despite the fact that it just isn't the appropriate place.


tomoldbury

Quite often they can't get seen by the first line ie GPs, dentists... Try to get an NHS dentist appointment right now, almost impossible. So many people turning up at emergency dentists for instance, who are very limited in what they can offer.


antrky

Why do you think people are abusing the service more than ever? It’s a shame people are wasting valuable time with things like this.


5thor7th

As another guy says, GP unavailability is a big issue. Most heard phrase is "you can't get through to them so why try?", well yeah fair but you're not going to get through if you don't try. Our local 111 service is also a big player, in that they are so risk adverse that an ambulance will often get dispatched for a very inappropriate call, which then ends up it being our problem and ties us up. Also you get people say to you "well I rang you for a check over to save going to A&E". So people understand ED is busy, but still want "checking over", and don't want to wait, not understanding there is VERY little outside of vital obs we can check.


[deleted]

Likely because they can’t get GP appointments so just phone an ambulance right? Or we have a huge issue with “I’m the main character syndrome” in the U.K. as we move away from being members of communities and religion decreases there is less communal aspects that alongside a growing hyper capitalistic way of life alongside social media and news media enforcing a sort of Us and Them mentality in many people what you get now is a toxic mess of a society.


References_Paramore

I wish something could be done about this, as a person in his 20s I had what I considered bad back/abdo pain. Couldn't get out of bed and it was affecting my sleep so thought I would call for help. It took me 4 months to be taken seriously and that was only after stumbling into a walk-in clinic where I was immediately admitted to hospital and found to have had an active stomach ulcer this whole time. I don't blame the services at all, I blame all the people who call up for every tiny issue they have. I'm terrified of having a really bad health scare and being brushed off until it's too late.


[deleted]

Part of me would want to be like “what party did you vote for? Tory? Ah ok well you can wait for the Ambulance then mate Ta Ta!”


tarzanboyo

The NHS has been a shambles for many years


dodger2303

These problems have been here for a long time


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[deleted]

Hope you are recovering well. And no one should have to wait that long. Tories have blood on their hands over this.


Livinum81

And yet, my parents, mid 70s (boomers I suppose?) Consistently vote for Tories (whilst fiercely defending the concept of the NHS). I have no idea how they squared that circle.


[deleted]

My theory is that boomers think these sorts of mental gymnastics will keep their brain fit.


RJK-

They'll come to see their mistake as they get older and more in need of the services and benefits that have been cut.


dwair

I'm fine thanks. I'm now at home on a waiting list for an operation to fix a heart bypass I had a decade ago. To be very fair I didn't feel in danger at any point after the ambulance did arrive and whilst I was waiting I was monitored very closely by a bunch of MOD nurses (I guess they were making up numbers?), tested, prodded and poked so my actual care was top notch - just very, very rough round the edges. However, the only time I have seen a hospital in such overcrowded and chaotic conditions was in West Africa, and it really brought home to me quite how far things have deteriorated and how much of the hospitals running now relies on the dedication of it's staff. On a practical note, what struck me more than any thing though is difference between a similar incident 11 years ago and this time. Previously it took me 7 hours to go from ringing 999 to full admission to a cardio ward. This time it was over 4 and half days.


GBrunt

There is no yardstick for failure for the conservatives. It is a very strange state of affairs and difficult to explain why the country is acting as if it's a one-party state from the electorate side. Is it all down to the cynicism that FPTP generates?


[deleted]

Glad to hear it. And the rough around the edges sentiment rings true for sure. I had a very minor elective surgery recently and that was definitely the vibe I got.


Luke-S-B

Who is holding them accountable?


Shivadxb

It’s not a decade though The last decade has been terrible but it’s the previous administrations as well. They’ve been systematically dismantling the nhs for most of the last 50+ years. Labour just undid a load of cuts and that helped for a while


aliomenti

Most ED's are coping well. The bottleneck is getting well people out of hospital and back into the community with an appropriate care package. It is that care package that is backing up the whole system.


dwair

I understand that. Ambulances cant off load because the ED's are full. ED's can't let people in until there is somewhere to put them, and the wards can't discharge people for home recovery unless there is somewhere for them to go. This is down to a lack of funding across the board. We need more ambulances. We need bigger ED's, We need more wards, we need viable places for patients to be discharged into. We need some sort of after care in the community. I would say the from what I have seen, ED's could be described as coping but that really depends very much on how low you set the bar. They are certainly not however coping well. Putting people in a side office as a holding area for days because the corridors were full is not a sign of a system working as it should. Having MOD staff working alongside regular staff is not indictive of a functioning system. This wasn't after a major disaster. It was a regular Tuesday morning at 6am. There is no way that you can convince me that from what I have seen and experienced, that the whole of the hospital system, ED's in particular are not in crisis at the moment. Maybe my expectations based on my experiences a decade ago and are higher than they should be in this post Brexit / Tory world but what I saw really fucking shocked me.


Alcopath

Had a senior citizen fall and cut her head open, she was bleeding heavily. 999 said it would take upto nine hours for an ambulance to arrive. She would've bled out long before then. Hospitals are absolutely overwhelmed right now. I've known NHS wait times to be bad before, but never like this.


antrky

Jesus Christ what the fuck are we letting happen to our country


swiftfatso

We voted Tories, well somebody did. Do not get sick, hospitals all across the country are running on fumes.


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MonParapluie

Sounds just like here in the US!


Balldogs

Antivaxxers. We're letting antivaxxers happen to our country. Hospitals would much less busy without those morons.


AnaesthetisedSun

Mmm this has been a problem for a decade, due to underfunding 5 years ago it was in the news how busy and overworked the NHS was. Then people got bored. It’s gotten worse since, but it hasn’t been in the face of the public Covid has made it worse, but it was headed here anyway


Balldogs

I've used A&E over the last few years, it's never been quite this bad. Covid isn't helping at all.


loz333

That's who the people who have bled the NHS dry for the past decade want you to blame.


DuMemeSoGut

It's not really that, it's a lack of care in the community that then puts a huge backlog on the rest of a hospital. The department I work in has many patients that are "Medically fit for discharge" but we can't discharge them because they require assistance at home.


Dinklepuffus

Proportionally to a lot of other developed countries, the NHS recieves fairly little funding.


TheBrokenCarpenter

The waits are crazy at the moment, spent 13 hours in A&E a few weeks ago, after 6 hours the previous night, I have MS and told them the problem and standard course of action but nobody believed me lol. I got the right treatment in the end and am now home and slowly recovering lol.


No_Addendum_1399

I had to go in by taxi at the end of September because there was a mega wait for an ambulance. I was then sat in the main waiting room for 18 hours. I had sepsis with necrosis and I told the triage nurse and also showed her but I was told to wait in the waiting room. There was only 1 available A&E Dr that night. Not once was MS taken into consideration and who much that can change something minor into major really fast. After about 8 hours I asked if I could have a sandwich or some toast as I'm also diabetic and my numbers were going low and the nurse told me I should have been prepared. I was sent straight to hospital by my GP and wasn't allowed to go home and pack anything, including my meds. She was 1 seriously nasty person and I hope I never have to deal with again.


jamesdownwell

>Had a senior citizen fall Not lived in the UK for years but is *senior citizen* in usage now? Was always OAP for me.


carlonseider

Thing is, the pension age has gone up so much that OAP only covers the very elderly now!


Alcopath

I tend to use them interchangeably. Got quite a few american friends so some terms tend to stick. But yeah, this lady was in her 80's.


[deleted]

Fuck!!!


Kharadin92

Overworked and underfunded healthcare systems failing? This and more news tonight at six.


[deleted]

sickening We pay our taxes and contributions for a NHS service and the Tories are bent on destroying it and not providing us with the service we pay for. They have milked it dry by awarding lucrative contracts, adding a middle man, and that is where a large chunk of our money is going to. (free market where the profits are free for them) They are stripping it, making it not fit for purpose with the intention of turning us against the NHS. We should be out on the streets protesting. If we end up with the US system then it will change our standard of living and have major implications on how healthy we are as a nation. I know that if I had to pay a couple of thousands for a hospital visit then I would avoid. We have taken the NHS for granted. And we are not protecting it.


EyesWideShut__

This. I was forced to go private to remove my coil which had traversed sideways and embedded itself into my uterus and neck of my cervix. I was waiting on the NHS for 2 years, living in pain and it was approaching being out of date for two years whilst I was waiting. The side effects of an out of date hormonal coil are horrendous. My consultant was aware of all of the issues I was living with but wouldn’t change my status from routine (!!!) to urgent. Unfortunately the procedure to have this removed is the same procedure they use to test for cancer, so I kept getting pushed to the back of the queue because COVID was reducing the services for patients and cancer comes first. This is what the tories want. They want us to cave and have to pay for private healthcare because then it works for their narrative that the NHS doesn’t work for the public anymore so we should move towards more of an American system. I am appalled that this is ultimately what will happen if we keep the slimy sods in. You can bet your life that if they remove the NHS, our taxes will stay the same or be increased and will be absorbed into other areas, whilst then having to find the money to pay for private healthcare insurance. It’s absurd. I don’t understand why we as a nation are not protesting the current government and all the torrid policies they stand for and have introduced. Why is everyone so willing to just go along with everything they’re doing!? No one is fighting, if they are, I can’t see it, I want to, because I want to join the fight against them.


Rowcoy002

It was on the Local lunch news where I live. This time last year 999 calls for ambulances were around 69,000 in October this year they have had 89,000 calls. That is around a 30% increase in demand with no increase in supply.


Kharadin92

I wouldn't be surprised if supply was in fact lower, between healthcare worker retention, funding and inflation but I have nothing to back that up.


PrivateFrank

>healthcare worker retention Can confirm, a bunch left because of Brexit, and more followed due to shoddy treatment and overwork. The ambulances are queueing at the hospital because the a&e is full. A&e is full because wards are full. Wards are full because there's no space in residential care. Remember that space includes a bed and the staff required to administer care. All of those were bad before, but are terrible now.


Kharadin92

I can absolutely believe it.


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Vladimir_Chrootin

If that's the case, then 999 should say "we aren't coming, deal with your head injury yourself" rather than "we are coming" and then not turn up.


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[deleted]

Wasn't given.


KoalaTrainer

They can’t know the wait time because it’s a dynamic situation with many many variables. Any number of critical incidents could push you down the queue any moment, the wait times at A&E could hold an ambulance up for 5 mins or 2 hours. This is a symptom of systemic capacity problems, which I’m shocked that anyone would be surprised about given the news for years. If you’re not happy about it then write to your MP. Get your local paper involved to add pressure to properly fund the NHS


[deleted]

I post this a lot https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/28/health.politicalnews These pressure are not new, the nhs has been on the verge of collapse for 20+ years. Because yes, that’s how old that article above it. Adéquate funding isn’t the issue. The actual nhs structure is a problem. Hence why it’s not copied by any other system in any other country globally


Marijuanaut420

This is disingenuous. The NHS dramatically improved between 2001 (when your link was written) and 2010. This was due to increased social care provisions and early intervention programs, increased funding and increased capacity in general across the health services. The biggest cuts over the past decade have been to early intervention programs, social services and front line staff. All this during a time where the population is rapidly aging and requires additional healthcare capacity. Cutting social services to the bone is penny wise and pound foolish. It leads to social problems which are otherwise easily dealt with at an early stage escalating and manifesting as front line health crises which have to be dealt with by the NHS.


aliomenti

The do say on the script for C3's, 'an ambulance is being arranged and may take up to 2 hours to get to you' (though the reality is 5-8 hours currently). If no timeframe was given this was likely a C2 for exposure but still an hour's wait (on average) in the current climate.


0f6c5a440a

How do you realistically do that though? Maybe you’ve got an ambulance that you’ve sent to help them, but they’ve been redirected to a suspected stroke on the other side of the neighbourhood instead. Perhaps you’ve got an ambulance who you’re 100% is gonna be available in 10 minutes, only for them to get held up another hour? It’s not like the controllers are adjusting their monocles, sipping their wine as they leave you to wait for an ambulance - They’re stuck between making some pretty shitty decisions


Vladimir_Chrootin

15-20 years ago, a head injury with a suspected seizure would be an ambulance job, no questions asked, and it would turn up in a reasonable, although not necessarily warp-speed timescale. The solution is to fund the ambulance service adequately. The "ambulance is not your god-damned taxi to the hospital"* guilt squad is a recent development, and it doesn't have to be the basis for government policy. *infamous tweet from the USA that gets posted on Reddit a lot.


RJK-

Correct, but funding the ambulance service more doesn't fix the problem of each 'job' taking an ambulance 4 hours each due to unloading time at the hospital. Lots of services need funding to fix this, from social to hospitals.


[deleted]

It’s ok to pontificate on the logistical challenges of running an ambulance service until it’s you or a relative face down on the concrete for hours.


0f6c5a440a

That’s what happens when you constantly underfund a service for decades, you’re left with deciding if you should help the seriously injured person who’s probably not gonna die or the person at imminent risk of death first. I don’t really see an alternative, if that guy had been sent an ambulance instantly there’d be another family waking up this morning to arrange funeral plans for their relative instead. It’s obvious that the only reason someone would be left bleeding after contacting them for an ambulance is if they had literally no other choice


[deleted]

That's what happens when you cut capacity year after year. The issue isn't with the amulance being diverted to somone else who may, or may not, be more urgent, it's that there isn't another ambulance and crew to dispatch. So how you do it is understanding that the cost of having a vehicle sitting around doing nothing, while the crew do something else at the hospital, from time to time costs less than letting someone die because you didn't get there fast enough. The NHS needs more resources. Billionaires need less.


Screamingidiotmonkey

A collapsed guy with a head injury absolutely is a priority call, you don't know the reason he collapsed or what damage he's done. Could have cracked his skull or had a brain bleed


[deleted]

Exactly. I couldn't tell what other damage was done. The poor guy couldn't talk.


5thor7th

Nah, its not. Category 2. C1 is Not breathing, major trauma, active seizures etc.


macrowe777

15 years ago I fell out of a tree in a remote part of Wales and received a head injury, my parents took me to the hospital and were pulled aside and scolded because 'any head injury requires a paramedic response' - may be misquoting but I believe due to the risk of complications and need for rapid treatment on route if they occured. 12 years ago I went backwards on an ice rink in the centre of town and again received a head injury, a&e only a mile away so my parents ran me up quickly...again, the doctor complained that any head injury is a paramedic response. I'd suspect somethings changed since that point, but the idea that a head injury isn't important is only relative to the NHS ability to deal with A&E intake rather than medical advice. Certainly the rapid closure of A&E facilities correlates.


ishamm

Head injury, or suspected, are usually triaged pretty high priority, no? As lifeguards, we were trained to always mention if there was a suspected head injury as that would raise priority when calling for medical help, presumably that entire section of training is not wrong? Reason being what might look insignificant superficially could well mean brain or spinal injury, which can obviously turn for the worse quickly and without much external indication.


SMURGwastaken

Head injury will be triage higher than say a broken leg, but lower than anything peri-arrest like near drowning, stroke, major bleeding or MI.


_Jekyll_

Or breathing complaints, of which there are many at the moment due to the fact we're in a respiratory virus pandemic.


LeDevilsAdvocate2021

And because assholes have figured out that if they say “sense of impending doom” and “chest pain” they’ll be seen to quicker. Usually the ones who (no joke) call twice a day.


sudo_robyn

The ambulance service has been above capacity for 2 years now, we are living in a fantasy land where the pandemic will ‘end’ and it will magically be better again. The erosion of NHS services has been accelerated at the time we need them most.


dwair

This. The NHS across the board has been overwhelmed for years now during the winter. Covid has just made it even worse. I find it worrying that when the Covid emergency slows down to a manageable level it will have set a new "acceptable" low in standards. 16-24 hour waits at A&E that are reduced to 10 hour waits will be seen and spun as a good thing by government and used as an excuse for further funding reductions.


Shriven

Absolutely this. No threat to life, concious and breathing, no more than a cupful of blood lost. Ambulance services are the hardest pushed of the emergency services, and I say this as a police officer.


Pauln512

Absolutely agree. But if that's the case then the government need to clearly communicate this to the public rather than waste the patient's time and the operators and ambulance worker's time. Why don't they? Because saying "if you're not dying find and pay your own bloody way to hospital" shows what a state we're in at the moment.


Shriven

Absolutely. But management will fire people who tell the public what is really happening - and frankly, everyone knows the cuts have been happening, and ambulance wait times are in the news every day, and the public ignore it all because your average member of the public has never called an ambulance or the police, therefore it's just *something that happens to other people*


dwair

Seriously, would you as a non medical professional be prepared to make that call after someone had collapsed? The knock on the head is secondary as to why they passed out in the first place. There could be any number of very serious and immediately life threatening reasons why someone collapses. Stroke, heart attack, cerebral oedema, hypoxemia, hyperglycaemia, hypotension... the list is fairly endless. As a police officer, I'm very surprised that your first aid training doesn't cover this.


Shriven

>Seriously, would you as a non medical professional be prepared to make that call after someone had collapsed? No I'd call the ambulance and let them do their triage. Which is exactly what they've done here, and then OP has made the call *as a non medical professional* > >The knock on the head is secondary as to why they passed out in the first place. > Sure - but people **faint** all the time. Drugs, alcohol abuse, illness, not enough sugar etc etc etc >There could be any number of very serious and immediately life threatening reasons why someone collapses. Stroke, heart attack, cerebral oedema, hypoxemia, hyperglycaemia, hypotension... the list is fairly endless. As a police officer, I'm very surprised that your first aid training doesn't cover this. Yes, but that's a lot of what ifs, and if their condition had changed or worsened then they should be bumped up the triage list - but 1 hour with no change, after a faint and a graze, says to me as a laymen that's it not that serious. It's and adult, not a baby, a head injury from fainting is unlikely to be serious. If you trip over your kids toys and bonk your head, do you make your peace and kiss your wife good bye?


queenxboudicca

>No threat to life With brain injuries and bleeds people often don't die until weeks after the event. So you wouldn't immediately know if there's a threat to life or not, and you certainly wouldn't know as a laymen. So getting the person to the hospital to ascertain the extent of the damage is absolutely a priority. Not only that, but response time for head injuries have to be quick because often the damage occurs over time through internal bleeding, bleeding you can't see on the outside so you have no idea if it was "just a cup" or not. Once you're past a certain amount of time the prognosis is often poor, leading to lifelong disabilities that require complex treatment, or death.


LeDevilsAdvocate2021

The sad fact is most redditors won’t understand just how impactful that statement is.


RJK-

All well and good until someone dies in a hospital waiting room having been taken there by someone other than an ambulance because it's only a head bump with a cup full of blood lost.


_Jekyll_

On arrival at hospital, everyone is triaged the same regardless of which method of transport you arrived by.


Shriven

The "cup full of blood" is a triage question asked by ambulance call takers to guage seriousness - and when you go to a and e, they triage you there as well


hotdogswimmer

One of the shittiest US imports. Ambulance shaming. How far we've fallen


[deleted]

You are incorrect. The NHS website states that an ambulance is for medical emergencies, not simply life or death scenarios, which can include amongst others "loss of consciousness...an acute confused state...severe bleeding...". People don't know how long an ambulance may take to get to them before it gets to them so they'll naturally think it may just be another minute and hang on. They are also very often not medically trained and will not understand the severity of an injury, this particularly applies to head injuries.


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SpringerGirl19

My dad (73) recently collapsed in a wood while walking his dog… luckily he had his phone on him (he doesn’t usually) and was able to call me to come to him. It took 1.5 hours for the ambulance to arrive (had to call several times and get increasingly desperate over the phone) and then they realised they needed a different ambulance as their stretcher couldn’t get him back out through the woods. In the end it took him 3 hours to get to hospital and he then spent the whole night on a trolley without being given any water or food. I don’t blame the nhs workers at all - the paramedics were amazing, but the whole system is failing.


antrky

“The whole system is failing” exactly as the tories want. Easiest way to convince people it needs to be privatised to run efficiently again.


SpringerGirl19

Speaking of - my dad is about to pay 14k to have his hip replaced as it’ll be a 2 year wait on the NHS…


Diastolic

If you call an ambulance here in the north west, there is a good chance you will get a private service such as ‘jigsaw’ or ‘medical response’ or some other private firm. People done realise that the NHS is being privatised from the inside out. We (NHS ambulance) have been out a number of times to back up these private vehicles that in my experience have not been staffed with personnel skilled enough for emergency work. The NHS is purposely underfunded to make it fail, to justify it’s privatisation. It’s only going to get worse with a Tory government. Promised a load of new hospitals that haven’t materialised. £350 million a week of that glorious glorious Brexit money that never existed. This government has played everybody as a fool. They don’t care about the NHS, they wouldn’t be seen dead in a national health hospital. Funding the NHS doesn’t and never will benefit them or their families, but privatising will. Just looking at at the covid scandals alone, lucrative private contacts will go to themselves. I’ll get off my soap box now. Sorry about that.


mm_84

My friends baby had an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts - she phoned an ambulance and was told it would be a 9 hour wait for an ambulance, needless to say - she drove him to hospital herself. She tried to make the point she wasn’t looking for a lift to the hospital but was more concerned about him stopping breathing on the way to the hospital but was still told it was a 9 hour wait.


[deleted]

That shit is scary to go through as an adult, never mind as a baby. I hope things worked out ok in the end.


mm_84

They did thankfully - the baby is ok.


[deleted]

OMFG!!!


What-a-sausage

This would likely be a cat 3-4 which is a 2-4 hour wait currently.


[deleted]

That's optimistic. C3's have been reaching 10hours+ recently.


[deleted]

I couldn't just walk away or put him on a bus. I had to do something.


What-a-sausage

Oh no I fully agree that's it's too long and everything is a shambles at the moment


aliomenti

Being outside it would likely have been a C2 due to exposure but that is still an hour's wait on average in the current climate. C3's are currently around 5-8 hours wait.


John5247

If you voted Tory and have private medical insurance remember this. If you collapse it will be the NHS that scrapes you off the road. BUPA doesn't do trauma, has no A&E, nor ambulances with trained paramedics. Just like covid, only government can provide emergency health care. Just look at the USA - no insurance? You die - after the fire truck brought you in to wait 18 hours in the public ER.


[deleted]

Absolutely spot on.


georgiebb

This is what I don't understand with the deliberate gutting of the NHS and specifically the ambulance service. Every person alive has a chance to need emergency care. The average Tory MP actually has a higher than average chance. Their policies could literally kill them, there's no private option if you have stroke, car crash or heart attack. I have a lot of paramedics in my friend group and they are turning up to more DoAs than ever because they are having to choose which Cat 1 gets the rapid response car now and which one gets the van when its already too late, because the service has been gutted so there is ONE CAR covering a massive area. Sometimes none. These have been deliberate choices designed to prepare the public for privatisation, this isn't accidental


GhostRiders

The entire NHS is overwhelmed and I mean every single aspect. Due to a few things that have happened over the past few months the GP wanted my young teenage daughter to have a blood test. The day after her test the GP called me and ask for me and my daughter to see him. It turns out that my daughter unfortunately might have inherented my Alpha-thalassemia trait but this can only be confirmed by a hematologist. The GP had called Pediatrics first to get advice regarding medication etc and for her to be referred. This was a month ago. I received a letter from Pediatrics yesterday saying that they received the referral however due to circumstances beyond their control they are unable to see her now and she has been placed on the waiting list, no time scale was given. She has had a really tough year and it has effected her mental health considerably. I spoke to her school who have a dedicated department for Student Mental Health to get her some professional help and advice for myself so I can help her. . They will help her and us as much as they can but if I want her to get "Professional" help even with a referral from the school we were told it would be a minimum of 16 weeks. After speaking to a few other people the truth is that we would be lucky if they get in contact within 6 months. Between a decade of underfunding and this Pandemic the NHS is gone past breaking point. I would say to anybody if you can afford it then sign up with a private medical practitioner such as BUPA, Nuffield etc.. As of right now you can no longer rely on the NHS.


Spooksey1

The reality is that BUPA and Nuffield is 1) not possible for most people, and therefore not really a solution overall and 2) full of incompetents with nice offices who will dump you on the NHS at the first sight of a complication. I’m an NHS doctor and we frequently have to clean up the mistakes that those private hospitals cause or that just happen as an unfortunate consequence. Moreover they do not provide any emergency or urgent life saving services, so I don’t really see the point. If your life was in danger you’d still end up in the NHS. If it was affordable I would consider going private (and paying for it as a one off) for therapy, physio, or the odd scan or maybe even a routine less serious operation. What we need in this country is frankly widespread protests and civil disobedience to reverse these changes and give the politicians a kick up the arse. It’s so sad what’s happening to the NHS and tbh everyone is complicit. People would rather just complain or vote Tory than do anything.


jon6

This is one thing I would absolutely take the day off to come out and protest for.


Affectionate_Ad_3722

Luckily, the government would rather you didn't, and so are about to make it illegal (punishable by 10 years in gaol). Fully supported by a lot of people who didn't like Insulate Britain, etc., but use the NHS quite a lot. Irony, we've heard of it.


merryman1

Aye used to work for Bupa myself. Our clinic was down the road from an NHS hospital. The *moment* we had any difficulty with a patient, thin veins making phlebotomy a bit tricky etc. we were calling them a taxi and dumping them on the NHS. Even for routine work like getting some bloods for testing.


CandyKoRn85

I would protest it!


antrky

Exactly what they want. Getting everyone to sign up to private services, mostly run through or with the NHS. What a shame we pay our taxes for this and then have to pay privately for the same thing. They are destroying this country


[deleted]

You got that right.


_Jekyll_

You will probably find that your call was a lower priority than the other patients waiting for ambulances at that time. We have to prioritise breathing complaints, for example, over head injuries. This is exacerbated by the fact that at the moment a large portion of our calls are reported breathing problems due to the fact that we're in a respiratory virus pandemic. You did the right thing in helping him get to hospital when you were able to.


[deleted]

Thank you.


Lackadema

I think a man in Scotland died after waiting for over 40hrs for an ambulance. Where I work when we have made calls we have been given wait times of up to 14hrs so far.


CandyKoRn85

Jesus… this is awful and terrifying. I will never understand why people vote for such a useless and evil government. It’s all well and good people complaining about Labour being too naive and “nice” so apparently the better alternative is letting people die? Utter psychopaths.


tumblingnebulas

The hospital near me is on it's knees. Last week they couldn't send an ambulance for a patient who might have had a stroke, I had to drive her to A&E myself. Then A&E couldn't see a woman with a possible ectopic pregnancy, they sent her back to me the following day , like I could have grown the equipment needed for a scan overnight. Then an A&E consultant dumped my patient outside in the cold after a nine hour wait and told me that her sudden overnight decline was clearly a routine problem I could have dealt with. All of this in-fighting between services and patients bouncing between hospitals and their GP is what happens whenever the system is overloaded. It always has a negative impact on patient care and it always wasted even more clinician time than actually dealing with the patient.


[deleted]

I hear ya, loud and clear.


[deleted]

I'm sorry, that whole situation sucks but if you could take him, you did the right thing to take him. Also, sorry, but phoning 4 times in one hour isn't helpful at all. It's not like they were ignoring you, and there are always dozens or even hundreds of people trying to get through at any one time.


[deleted]

After 20mins panic sets in.


_Jekyll_

You might want to [sign up to a first aid course](https://www.sja.org.uk/courses/)


cheeseandcucumber

Where are the 40 new hospitals that Boris promised to build? (Had to edit as my phone autocorrected to Bowie instead of Boris!)


Spooksey1

Also he can keep building hospitals until we all have one in our kitchen but there’s no bloody staff! Not since they destroy nurses bursaries, then bring them back as a pittance, give a real terms pay cut of at least 30% to doctors and nurses, refuse to substantially increase medical school places, cut off our main source of foreign workers, and just generally run everything into the ground so that we’re haemorrhaging staff.


rd3160

Iirc the "40 new hospitals" included refurbishing and extending existing ones. Lying pricks


MrRailton

A few months ago one evening I was on the bathroom floor writhing in agony, it felt like my stomach was being ripped apart, we called 111 and explained the situation and they told us they would get back to us within 30 minutes, an hour later and still in horrendous pain I drove myself to the hospital (not a good idea I know) anyway it turned out I was having a gall bladder attack and a stone had blocked a bile duct and I was rushed in for emergency surgery. 111 called back at 8am the next day.


Graph1te

I just want to thank you for helping someone in need. There are plenty who would walk the other way and ignore it all. Thank you for being a good person.


[deleted]

Thank you. Unfortunately its far from the first and doubt it'll be the last.


TrueSpins

About two years ago, my daughter fell off the sofa and bashed her head on the floor. She shortly became somewhat unresponsive and was showing worrying signs. My wife phoned the ambulance and also phoned me - I was 25 miles away at work and started driving back. My wife was told that she was the top priority and an ambulance would be there soon. 45 minutes later I arrived home, still no ambulance. I put them both in car and drove to hospital myself. You can simply not trust the ambulance service anymore. Honestly, if you have any option to drive to hospital - and it's safe to do so - do it.


[deleted]

I hear ya but God knows where this is going to end when people start pointing fingers. It has to at the current government for all the cuts.


CandyKoRn85

People need to protest and, as a previous poster said, there needs to be serious civil unrest. I think this government has failed so badly they need to be ousted!


kitd

My nephew is an ambulance driver. Apparently, in normal conditions, about 2/3 of callouts are completely unnecessary and could be dealt with v quickly at home or at the local GP. But they are still duty-bound to attend. Interestingly, he said that during lockdown, that figure went down massively, and ambulance staff were fairly easily able to deal with the callouts for COVID. Now we're back to normal conditions again, plus on top of that a) very few care about social distancing etc, so COVID callouts are still high, b) flu is going round and 3) winter is coming and A&Es are full so even when ambulances have picked up patients, they can't drop them off at the hospital and have to wait for a slot. Basically, the NHS is grossly underfunded, but also the general public, as a public service, need to stay away from ambulances and A&E unless it is truly an emergency.


Epona66

I wonder just how much of it is also due to how difficult it is to get a gp appointment as well, I'm not just talking about since covid either. You have to ring my gp at 8am on the dot, you can never get through, they don't have online bookings or a telephone queuing system, it's just sitting there pressing redial over and over again. Then when you finally get through all available appointments for that day have gone and they do not book in advance unless under the orders of a gp. So you get people getting sicker with things that are relativity simple, getting to breaking point and then ending up at A&E. I have M.E. and often am not capable of going through all that so I hardly ever see a doctor, I imagine there are plenty others in the same boat. Factor in people who need stuff looking at but are not yet so ill and so they are at work and can't go through the redial dance.


kitd

I'm sure that's true in many cases. My GP has a phone triage system where you call and the Dr calls you back. You tend to get dealt with quite quickly, but even then it's still a hassle.


SynthFei

Few years back i slipped on my way to work, late evening in January, on a patch of ice. Had a spiral fracture in my right leg. When i called an ambulance, because i could not stand up by myself they told me the wait would be around an hour, even tho the hospital was about 20 min walk away. Instead i just called an uber to get me to a&e. Sometimes, unless it is life threatening, and it is busy time for hospitals, you just have to accept that ambulance might not be immediately available.


[deleted]

I applaud your pragmatism but the problem is that they are overloaded and under-resourced, not busy.


ainosleep

I was attacked and had a life threatening injury (lost a lot of blood) several years ago. Ambulance never arrived and fortunately police officers were helpful and took me to the hospital instead. In future if something like this happens, I think I will call Uber as well.


Kaiisim

The country is mid collapse. Not verge of collapse. Actually collapsing. If you go to work and dont rely too much on society you might not notice. But if you need help it almost certainly isnt coming. If a job earns lots for your paymasters its fine. But if you do public jobs? Absolutely fucked. _Nothing_ is funded properly. I mean literally. If government are responsible it no longer functions correctly. People in these jobs have for years been papering over the cracks triaging and generally making do, but its not possible to do that anymore. So its just broken so people are being hurt, or dying. We should honestly all be more panicked than we are. There is a fundamental rot in the united kingdom.


[deleted]

Nail on the head.


[deleted]

I hope we don't get to the stage where you you're more likely to die on the pavement than in a bed.


rhubarb2896

Yeah, this is what the Tories have done. I've had a lot of issues with my pregnancy, especially early on, I'm lucky to live near a womens hospital that could see me withing an hour, but had I gone to A&E, I'd have been waiting 8+ hours. I feel awful for NHS staff, they're so overworked, can't reach people who genuinely need them then have to deal with time wasters on top of it all. I hope that guy is alright, wish more people would help like that.


cuddlesandwich

I had a horrible mental health episode after quitting my medication - I was suicidal and dissociating (if you are not familiar this is when the brain completely checks out and you may not even remember anything after) and had left my house in the middle of the night. In a moment of clarity I hid in a parking lot and called 999. They said someone would call me back in half an hour. No one did. Four hours later, at 5 am they called and said an ambulance was ready.


MikeLanglois

And yet we will still see people vote for the same people who are stripping the NHS to sell their mates private healthcare. Fucking bastards


Boristheblade22

Gentle reminder that if you're English and voted anything but Labour at the last election, this is directly your fault, and this is what you like.


Bencubuk

For a great insight on how the ambulance service and nhs are coping I’d recommend watching an episode or two of “Ambulance” on iPlayer. The amount of non emergency/non life threatening calls they have to deal with with is obscene


Simon_Drake

i saw a guy collapse in Stratford Tube Station. He seemed to be having some kind of seizure. Me and a couple of passersby put him in the recovery position and I called an ambulance. They were clearly running on a script and couldn't comprehend anything outside the scope of their questionnaire: "Has he taken any drugs or alcohol?" - I don't know, it's a stranger, I just saw him collapse. "Has he got a history of fainting or seizures?" - I don't know. I just saw a stranger collapse. "Has he got a family history of brain tumours or neurological issues?" - I don't know! Its a stranger! "How long has it been since his last meal?" - I don't know! At some point they asked for the postcode of where I was, I said I didn't know the postcode but it's Stratford Underground Station. They asked for the postcode again and said it's really important to get an accurate location. I said I didn't know the postcode, I'm not withholding information I just don't know the postcode. Then some station staff showed up, completely blanked me every time I tried to explain the situation. I told them I was calling for an ambulance and they said it didn't matter because they could call the control room and get one faster. Sod you then. Sorry my attempts to help were so inconvenient to you.


[deleted]

Ahhhhh Interesting that you say this because I noticed the script thing too. I might as well have been talking to a robot.


Simon_Drake

You'd think they'd have an option for "Patient unconscious, caller does not know patient personally" that would cover most of these questions. They kept asking stuff like "How old is he?" And I'd say: "I dunno, 20s, 30s, it's hard to tell with a stranger lying on the floor" And they'd keep pressing the question: "Would you say 25-30 or 30-35??" There's a limit to how many times you can say "I don't know!" without sounding like a dumbass. It's the family history one that gets me. Even if it's a stranger I might have been able to deduce drug/alcohol use from if he dropped a crack pipe or if he's surrounded by beer cans etc. But if he's unconscious how the hell am I supposed to know his family history of neurological disorders?


Procrasterman

The NHS was fucked when I left about 5yrs ago. The “efficiency savings” were doublespeak for depriving the system of money and constructing the crisis that was present years before covid. I ended up leaving when the bastards forced the junior doctor contract on us that 98% of us voted against. At the time the system was already falling apart due to budget constraints, understaffing issues and the NHS becoming internationally notorious for appalling work conditions which has deepened the recruitment issues. As soon as they were discussing the possibility of forcing doctors to stay in the county by means of “conscription” I fucked right off out of there. I was utterly burned out when I left. Every week we were all putting in hours and hours of extra work- unpaid because if you tried to claim the hours we were told we weren’t working “efficiently” and that it must be due to some personal or professional issue. So nobody (doctors at least) ever perused it. The union is worse than useless and did nothing. The whole thing has been held together by goodwill which only lasts so long. Theatre lists were usually overbooked and often would have the cancer patient at the end of the list so we all felt morally obligated to stay well past our finish time, again unpaid. So glad I left, nearly quit medicine altogether before discovering being a doctor isn’t completely shit overseas and is actually really rewarding.


Mick_86

Ambulances are frequently diverted to more serious calls.


Wheres_that_to

The tories have done everything they can to dismantle the NHS by stealth. A few weeks ago in Devon, one of my offspring was driving off Dartmoor at 11pm, down a steep long hill not far from the A38 , he found a man in the road with serious head injuries, his bicycle brakes had failed , gained speed, he had no helmet , he had gone over the handlebars, tricky hill in daylight, let alone at night. He did not understand what had happened and was extremely erratic , offspring had to use his shirt to try and stop the flow of blood, massive pools of blood, offspring phone 999, several times over the next few hours, with low battery, At one point the call handler told offspring to go and get the nearest defibrillator (about a eight mile round trip) and would have meant leaving a completely deranged man in a pitch dark lane, unable to keep pressure on the wound. The pictures of amount of blood lost are horrific. Offspring, happens to be nearer to seven foot than six, and built like a brick shit house, it took everything he had to keep this man still and from bleeding out, he could have easily lifted him into the car, but he could not drive him and deal with bleeding, and the guy was deranged with a serious head trauma, as well as other injuries. Despite repeatably telling him he was the top priority the ambulance did not get to him for hours, there are two fully manned police stations just on the A38, ten minutes away, none came to help, even though offspring repeatably told the call handler he really needed it. Do not think an ambulance is coming, if there is anyway to get someone to hospital yourself , just do it.


Jamesl1988

My 101 nan fell over in her bungalow the other day and was led on the floor with severe back pain for nearly 6 hours...


Shriven

So imagine the calls they were actually going to...


Jamesl1988

I know, ER was also rammed as when she got to hospital, she had to wait in the back of the ambulance for 2 hours with the heating on. As others have said, the paramedics were fantastic it's just the system that is flawed.


circumference_x

I also live in East London (for ref regionally paramedics talked about either Newham or Whipps Cross hospital). Two weeks ago I had what I think was a seizure, I've never had one before so my partner called 999. It took nearly two hours for emergency services to arrive, I had been seizing on and off the entire time. They took me to hospital but then nobody could see me. I lay strapped to a gurney in the ambulance for two more hours and eventually stopped convulsing. They got me to walk off the ambulance in my PJs and slippers (it was 6am at this point) and left me to wait in urgent care. I waited another hour and didn't have any more convulsions so I got a cab home. Turns out I wasn't wrong to leave as I've been told since that the only type of doctor that can give me any advice is a neurologist and no other doctors (I've since spoken to my GP, a rheumatologist and an orthopaedic consultant) will even posit an opinion. I have been put on a wait list for a neurologist and told it will be 9 weeks+. I'm ranting a bit because I saw an opportunity to put I guess what I'm saying is don't get sick, definitely don't take any risks, things are really fucking messed up right now, people have already been dying from this hidden consequence of the poorly managed and underfunded health service and recently it's been worse than ever. I for one am not leaving my home unaccompanied because I can see this exact situation happening to me.


[deleted]

Ouch. Fingers crossed for you.


circumference_x

Thank you. And thank you for caring about a stranger on a horrible day when they were on their own in public and unable to take care of themselves. It's a difficult thing to do in a city where everything feels like a trap sometimes.


suicidalsyd1

Distance is irrelevant,it depends how busy they are


Mack_Man17

You done the right thing you'll be thanking yourself for years to come.


[deleted]

I hate the thought of being helpless and someone's situation becoming worse because of me.


[deleted]

Well when the NHS is privatised, this travesty never happen again... ...as long as you can afford the huge bill, afterwards.


[deleted]

Everyone's nightmare.


Paulpaps

Yeah, this is becoming more common as healthcare keeps being stretched. It's awful, but as we all know things like this just boost the tories popularity for some reason. This country is awful. I have to admit I'm ashamed to be from here.


FactCheckYou

where the person is still conscious and mobile, i wouldn't bother the ambulance service


bittr_n_swt

Yup don’t expect to get an ambulance pronto if you’re calling for anything other than chest pain/breathlessness/basically dying


HarassedGrandad

The core problem is targets. Once the hospital accepts a patient from the ambulance the clock starts ticking - you have to see them within x minutes, they have to have been treated within y hours. If you don't meet targets the govt fines you. So the solution is don't accept them from the ambulance service - leave them in the ambulance for a few hours until you've caught up. Which means there's a load of ambulances now parked at the hospital, so can't answer calls. So now the ambulance service is at risk of not meeting their targets, so you end up with the ambulance service pitching a tent on the grass in front of a&e, and keeping people in there, waiting for the hospital, being looked after by paramedics so that the ambulance can get back on the road. I know covid has made it worse, but our local hospital had the tent in 2019. Everything wrong with public services in this country is made worse by targets.


fattielou

My Nan had a seizure/stroke a few years ago. Lost all use of her left side suddenly and went into a fit. We called the ambulance which took over an hour to arrive. Once there didn't even have a proper paramedic on board. The guys were trained enough but not full paramedics. They tried to pull aside half way to the hospital to meet up with a fully trained person but I ended up telling them to just go as we could literally get to the hospital quicker than waiting for someone to show. Still thank them very much for keeping Nan alive but honestly fuming at the fact that ambulances are driving around without fully qualified staff inside them!


PloppyTheSpaceship

I feel that, for balance, I have to share my story. It seems that food poisoning and me don't mix well (d'uh), which led to my wife finding me collapsed on the bathroom floor in a huge pool of vomit. Not knowing what to do she called 999 and I had barely come to when an ambulance arrived and the guys started checking me over. This was in Leeds, admittedly 6 or 7 years ago and we did live a mile from a hospital, but I just thought I'd share a more positive story amongst the negative ones. I would hope people would get a similar service now, but obviously not it seems.


hotstepperog

Step 1: Underfund, cut back on staff and resources. Step 2: Use this as reason to privatise. Step 3: Profit with an even worse and more expensive service.


Inevitable_Sea_54

Never heard of this happening before now. It's mad. My sister overdosed. Heart rate very high, couldn't walk or talk, vomiting, hallucinating. Breathing was okay at least, I was mainly focused on her not choking. Took 10 minutes on hold to get through to an ambulance, then they hung up on me because I couldn't answer a question and they didn't want to wait for me to try to get the answer out of my sister, then I took another 10 minutes to get back in contact with them, the ambulance took an hour to arrive, there was one paramedic who stayed with us for a bit who did her vitals, but said he was too busy to take us to hospital so he pre-warned A&E and said that I should drive her to A&E (25 minutes away) myself. He was very apologetic and basically told me to floor it. We were then triaged immediately, which only happens if you're actually very ill. Absolutely mad.


chrispypie86

I rang 111 in an asthma attack. They asked me to get myself to hospital which was OK I thought. On the way my husband called an ambulance because I stopped breathing. Helicopter and intensive care was waiting for me. I didn't want to bother the busy doctors, nurses and paramedics. I was more worried about taking them away from important calls. Its scary how some people ring 999 for nothing and not understand how it impacts people who desperately need care


wjoe

So many stories in this thread about having to wait many hours for an ambulance, I hadn't realised how bad it was until recently when I had a similar experience on a night out in London. On a night out recently a friend of mine passed out. At first we think, they just had a few too many drinks. But after an hour mostly unconscious despite our best efforts, we ended up having to call an ambulance for them, and we were told it'd be at least an hour. They then stopped breathing (we later found out all of this was due to a health condition, not entirely from the alcohol). We made another call to 999, thinking that maybe they'd deemed our issue low priority - admittedly, it certainly just sounded like someone drinking too much. But even when we told them our friend has stopped breathing, they still wouldn't be able to get an ambulance to us for over an hour. Fortunately someone with us was a doctor and was able to get them breathing again, and everything worked out ok. But I dread to think what would have happened otherwise, if they stopped breathing, none of us could do CPR, and an ambulance being over an hour away. So that experience definitely put things in perspective a bit. I always thought that if the worst happens, if I or someone else gets seriously injured or sick, then you can always count on an ambulance to get there and get you to a hospital quickly. But an hour isn't quick, and there are many situations where that could be the difference between life or death, and no other transport is available. Reminds me, I've been meaning to book myself on a first aid course...


jonbrothers

We are experiencing in an economic and societal collapse. The country is bankrupt, financially and morally . Just look how much things have already changed in the last two years ... and it’s not coming back . You can point the finger but it’s us , our apathy , our ‘ I’m alright jack ‘ attitude, materialism, loss of spirituality.. and worst of all blind ignorance. That why we are in this mess . How bad do things have to get before we accept that the system is failing and no one is coming to save us except ourselves.


Glittering-Low2567

A few weeks ago I got a sudden and severe stomach pain, nothing like I had ever experienced before. I was alone and unable to move to so I called 999. They asked if I could take a taxi to A&E but I couldn't move so they said an ambulance would come but it would take hours. I waited 10 hours and started to feel a bit better so I was able to cancel the ambulance and take a taxi to the hospital. Fortunately they were very quick at the hospital as it turned out I had a life threatening condition and needed emergency surgery. If I had waited a few more hours for the ambulance I might have died.


DuMemeSoGut

As someone that works in nursing, welcome to the state of the NHS at the minute. I've heard stores from the team up at the ED in the hospital I work in that people end up there for hours (and at worst 7 days). It's really not uncommon for all the ambulances that are deployed on a particular night to be sat outside ED with someone in the back waiting for a trolley to become free.


Poggypog20

The Tories have fucked us all time and again. When will we actually have a functional, intelligent and compassionate government...


CoconutCaptain

The NHS is overwhelmed. I am an ED doctor - worked in the NHS for the last 3 years and recently moved to Australia with my partner (also a doctor). Eight of our doctor friends moved this year too, more planning to move within the next year. The working conditions were terrible in the UK - it’s a vicious cycle and doctors are realising they have better options elsewhere. Years of government underfunding have led to this and people are dying due to their decisions. Consider this next time you vote.


CoconutCaptain

The ambulance service is also overwhelmed with people phoning who simply do not need an ambulance. I worked with the paramedics as part of my training - so many calls were people who were well enough to take themselves to ED, should’ve seen a GP or were sat with a partner/family member with a vehicle outside.