Hope no one is waiting for an Ambulance especially in Medway

[Paul-H]

Rant on

My wife works with the Elderly in an Independent living scheme

At 9am this morning she had an emergency call from one of the residents.

She was showing symptoms of suffering a stroke, so 999 was called and an ambulance dispatched. 4 and a half hours later an Ambulance car turned up. after sitting with her for 2 hours he decided she needed to go to hospital so phones for a proper ambulance as he was in a car so couldn't take her. Its now 6pm the Ambulance car driver is still sitting with her waiting for the Ambulance to take her to Hospital 9 hours so far from that first 999 call and 4 and a half hours the Ambulance car driver has sat with her.

He decided quite quickly she was not suffering from a stroke so why does he need to sit and wait over 4 hours and counting for the main ambulance to turn up, how many heart attack patients have died whilst all the paramedics are sitting around holding the hands of elderly patients.

How is this a good use of resources

God help anyone living in Medway in need of an Ambulance

Rant off

Paul

[Puffin]

Beggars belief really. Just heard on the radio that the London Ambulance Service (computer?) went down last night and they had to do it all by hand on bits of paper and they only had radio contact with the ambulances. Shame that all those wankers who drank themselves into oblivion didn't (probably/hopefully) get the help they deem their right last night.

[Stryder5]

I'm so ashamed that many of our services are underfunded and the people in these services are so undervalued and fed up of the way they are treated they become disenchanted, and a little disinterested.

I'm not in any way political, but I am at a loss as to why our Government approach the issues of many of our services, with such ignorance and disdain. Our money is spent in vast amounts on unworthy causes.

Perhaps it's an issue of " not being able to see the problem, never mind a solution.".

[struth]

No doubt the NHS is creaking. Many reasons, but mostly they try to do too many things I guess for the amount that we pay for it. Also the culture of lawsuits has forced a large part of the budget to be spent on insurance, or so I'm told. When my wife died the ambulance too 40 mins in a life and death situ as it was boxing day and they were understaffed and there were too many folk calling for them. Whether it would have made a difference i will never know but it may well have.
until we cut out the unnecessary stuff done on nhs and stop sueing for just about anything. I can only see it getting worse. Folk living too long as well(in a financial sense) as old folk are a big expense. once would have been cared for by family but more and more go into homes.
Alas Im ill now and and worried about it .

Paul, sorry to hear your wifes problem, and at least she can say she did the right things and helped.

[Puffin]

I assume that the story of the health tourist that was expecting triplets is true. she is said to have run up a bill of £140,000 and after she had gone home they wrote her a letter about it :) Oh..and the nationwide computer system that cost billions and never worked.....possibly part of the same system that the Ambulance Service are using that they say keeps crashing. Why aren't they chasing the cowboys that stole all the money and provided nothing. Probably because they liquidated that company (as our pathetic laws allow them to do) and set up another company the same day to fleece someone else.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn

[sq225917]

European citizens all have the same rights to shared medical cover with the appropriate paperwork. If true her kids cost you 0.3p

But its likely bullocks.

[Paul-H]

The Paramedic finally left at 9pm, so he sat with her for 8 hours, apparently they gave up when the local hospital (Medway) closed its A&E department to new cases.

What a waste of resources.

12 hours from time 999 call made to when the Ambulance car paramedic drove off.

What a joke.

[hifinutt]

well in contrast to this . yesterday pm in frosty conditions i was walking by a river next to a major artery road into a big city . there lying in the river was a body of a female . quite steep bank to the river . loads of people walking by but no one noticed her

not quite knowing what to do i called the emergency services and they sent 4 police cars , i fire engine and 2 ambulances in about 4 minutes . incredible response .

it is a certain fact that she would be dead and on the front page today if she had lain there all night . hopefully she survived as they got her out and managed to rouse her . she was a very pretty african lady

so be reassured folks , sometimes they do get it very right and well done to them

[ReggieB]

I do voluntary work for my local ambulance service (http://www.wmas.nhs.uk/Pages/Community-First-Responders.aspx). The ambulance service run a priority system. You can find the details on line (http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/aboutnhsservices/emergencyandurgentcareservices/pages/ambulanceservices.aspx):



Any 999 call to an ambulance service is prioritised into two categories to ensure life-threatening cases receive the quickest response:
1. Immediately life threatening

A. Red 1: 75% of Category A Red 1 calls (the most time critical, where patients are not breathing or do not have a pulse) to be responded to within 8 minutes
B. Red 2: 75% of Category A Red 2 calls (still serious, but less immediately time critical, like strokes or fits) to be responded to within 8 minutes. The clock starts ticking up to 60 seconds after the clock for Red 1.
C. A19: 95% of Category A calls to be responded to within 19 minutes.

2. All other calls – For conditions that are not life threatening, response targets are set locally


It is important to understand that there are two things the ambulance service do: emergency response and routine patient transfer. The latter getting a much lower priority (and also often using dedicated ambulances that are in effect medicalised minibuses).

So a Red 1 call such as an unconscious person down the side of a river bank will get a very fast response. They get the high priority emergency service.

I expect the lady in the original post was diagnosed over the phone as not have an immediately life threatening condition, and if the paramedic on scene had assessed that she needed urgent transfer to hospital they could have bumped up the category and got an ambulance quickly. I expect she was diagnosed as needing non-urgent transfer to hospital - so she got the transfer service.

In my experience, it is precisely because the urgent calls in the area were being responded to, that the lady had to wait so long. It's sometimes the case that the ambulance assigned to the low priority case will be diverted to a life-threatening incident, and then the low priority case will need to be re-assigned to another ambulance. If this happens a couple of times, it can take a while for an ambulance to arrive.

Update: I'm not trying to say the system is perfect, but rather that there are very good reasons why two 999 calls could get very different response times. It is very much because the ambulance service cannot respond to all calls with the same rapidity, that this priority system is in place.

[dave2010]

I'm so ashamed that many of our services are underfunded and the people in these services are so undervalued and fed up of the way they are treated they become disenchanted, and a little disinterested.

I'm not in any way political, but I am at a loss as to why our Government approach the issues of many of our services, with such ignorance and disdain. Our money is spent in vast amounts on unworthy causes.

Perhaps it's an issue of " not being able to see the problem, never mind a solution.".Politicians and service organisers often seem to want to spend the same money over and over again. Plus the money isn't enough anyway, and often there are no checks that things are being done, or that money is being spent, or spent wisely.

I know of other parts of our "wonderful system" where there is severe under funding, and now under resourcing due to staff and other cuts,
yet apparently "legal obligations" to act - and the net result seems to be that "clients" don't actually get the help or service they might need, and further, that staff trying to sort out this mess themselves get very stressed - possibly with very severe consequences.

Politicians don't give a .... seemingly.

[hifinutt]

I do voluntary work for my local ambulance service (http://www.wmas.nhs.uk/Pages/Community-First-Responders.aspx). The ambulance service run a priority system. You can find the details on line (http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/aboutnhsservices/emergencyandurgentcareservices/pages/ambulanceservices.aspx):



It is important to understand that there are two things the ambulance service do: emergency response and routine patient transfer. The latter getting a much lower priority (and also often using dedicated ambulances that are in effect medicalised minibuses).

So a Red 1 call such as an unconscious person down the side of a river bank will get a very fast response. They get the high priority emergency service.

I expect the lady in the original post was diagnosed over the phone as not have an immediately life threatening condition, and if the paramedic on scene had assessed that she needed urgent transfer to hospital they could have bumped up the category and got an ambulance quickly. I expect she was diagnosed as needing non-urgent transfer to hospital - so she got the transfer service.

In my experience, it is precisely because the urgent calls in the area were being responded to, that the lady had to wait so long. It's sometimes the case that the ambulance assigned to the low priority case will be diverted to a life-threatening incident, and then the low priority case will need to be re-assigned to another ambulance. If this happens a couple of times, it can take a while for an ambulance to arrive.

Update: I'm not trying to say the system is perfect, but rather that there are very good reasons why two 999 calls could get very different response times. It is very much because the ambulance service cannot respond to all calls with the same rapidity, that this priority system is in place.

thanks for that reggie , keep up the good work . my old mum lives in pershore so no doubt you have to deal with that area

[ReggieB]

thanks for that reggie , keep up the good work . my old mum lives in pershore so no doubt you have to deal with that area

Thanks Phil,

The group I'm a member of (http://voecfr.org/) covers Evesham, Pershore and Broadway. I live in Evesham, so only occasionally end up responding to Pershore calls. So you're mum has a small chance of having this bearded buffoon turning up on her doorstep. But one of my colleagues may well be on hand, should the need arise. Hopefully it won't :)

Oh! and well done yourself - it sounds like your recent call to the emergency services could well have saved that woman's life!

[Paul-H]

In the case i posted about the lady in question was diagnosed over the phone as possibly suffering a stroke, it took 4 hours for the first paramedic to arrive.

I suspect by then if she had suffered a stoke as a result of a blood clot it would have been far too late to administer the clot busting drugs such a stroke needs.

Fortunately for her it was not a stroke

[hifinutt]

Thanks Phil,

The group I'm a member of (http://voecfr.org/) covers Evesham, Pershore and Broadway. I live in Evesham, so only occasionally end up responding to Pershore calls. So you're mum has a small chance of having this bearded buffoon turning up on her doorstep. But one of my colleagues may well be on hand, should the need arise. Hopefully it won't :)

Oh! and well done yourself - it sounds like your recent call to the emergency services could well have saved that woman's life!
thanks rob
yes i believe she would be dead if left overnight . its a bit of a miracle really she was found