News3 mins ago
Emergency Services Waiting Times.
28 Answers
Ambulance waiting times currently more than an hour. Had occasion to call 999 recently and it took me an hour to get through. Then we waited 20 minutes for someone to turn up. This is unacceptable. My neighbour could easily have died.. Have heard reports that ambulances have taken six hours to turn up. Of course the Left blame 'under-funding' of the NHS. They always do. My view is that the problem is systemic.
Answers
Covid is a lame excuse. Long delays are nothing new. I waited eleven hours for an ambulance - and that was ten years ago.
13:19 Thu 12th May 2022
The 999 service isnt run by the NHS though?
However for the A&E they are still struggling with a 'covid' problem in that doctors are still not opening up so people are going to A&E to see someone. (One of my daughters is back in A&E as a doctor).
I havnt seen any figures but it wouldn't surprise me if many are using the 999 service to get help with problems a GP could help with so putting a strain on the service.
However for the A&E they are still struggling with a 'covid' problem in that doctors are still not opening up so people are going to A&E to see someone. (One of my daughters is back in A&E as a doctor).
I havnt seen any figures but it wouldn't surprise me if many are using the 999 service to get help with problems a GP could help with so putting a strain on the service.
There have always been delays because you cant staff and equip for maximum usage 365/24.
The problem at the moment is that its stressed due to continual high volume of callouts and delays getting into A&E( For Ambulances mainly A&E). And much of that is due to the covid fallout of GP's refusing to see people face to face.
Apparently still plenty of people arriving with objects in places they shouldn't be though. Some things never change.
The problem at the moment is that its stressed due to continual high volume of callouts and delays getting into A&E( For Ambulances mainly A&E). And much of that is due to the covid fallout of GP's refusing to see people face to face.
Apparently still plenty of people arriving with objects in places they shouldn't be though. Some things never change.
//There have always been delays because you cant staff and equip for maximum usage 365/24.//
The Fire Service does. Very rarely is there a delay in getting a Fire crew to attend an incident.
The entire NHS is unfit for purpose and has been for donkeys' years. The trouble is, nobody will accept that fact and do something about it. So long as it is treated as a quasi-religion, untouchable, immune from criticism or (most importantly) reform, that will continue. But that's a discussion beyond the scope of this thread.
As suggested, I believe the principle cause of ambulance delays is the delays the crews are suffering in getting their patients into A&E. Much of the cause of that is because patients now have nowhere to go to seek treatment for minor problems which should be dealt with by a GP. And the cause of that is the GP service as unfit for purpose (perhaps even more so) as the rest of the NHS, so compelling a number of patients who should not be there to seek help at A&E (like my mate with a mole on his back, which his GP refused to examine in person). As well as that, the number of GPs has increased by 5.25% since 2009 whilst the population has increased by 9.1% in that time (as far as we know).
The decline in the effectiveness of the NHS is just one example of the general malaise that has infected the country in the past few years. This decline has been accelerated by the pandemic with many organisations and people simply refusing to return to normal working. They need a kick up the Aris and first in line, as far as this question goes, should be GPs.
The Fire Service does. Very rarely is there a delay in getting a Fire crew to attend an incident.
The entire NHS is unfit for purpose and has been for donkeys' years. The trouble is, nobody will accept that fact and do something about it. So long as it is treated as a quasi-religion, untouchable, immune from criticism or (most importantly) reform, that will continue. But that's a discussion beyond the scope of this thread.
As suggested, I believe the principle cause of ambulance delays is the delays the crews are suffering in getting their patients into A&E. Much of the cause of that is because patients now have nowhere to go to seek treatment for minor problems which should be dealt with by a GP. And the cause of that is the GP service as unfit for purpose (perhaps even more so) as the rest of the NHS, so compelling a number of patients who should not be there to seek help at A&E (like my mate with a mole on his back, which his GP refused to examine in person). As well as that, the number of GPs has increased by 5.25% since 2009 whilst the population has increased by 9.1% in that time (as far as we know).
The decline in the effectiveness of the NHS is just one example of the general malaise that has infected the country in the past few years. This decline has been accelerated by the pandemic with many organisations and people simply refusing to return to normal working. They need a kick up the Aris and first in line, as far as this question goes, should be GPs.
One key factor (and which, surprisingly nobody seems to have mentioned so far) has nothing to do with the quality of ambulance services per se. It's the time that ambulances have to wait to offload patients into over-stretched A&E departments. No ambulance service will be able to meet its response time targets if all of its ambulances are lined up at hospitals, waiting to become free after their previous call-outs.
Quote:
"There are different factors behind the long waiting times.
The ambulance service is seeing record levels of demand this year, as Covid restrictions have been lifted.
More than 860,000 calls to 999 were answered in England in April, 20% higher than in the same month in 2019.
There is a national shortage of paramedics across the UK, and Covid has still been causing disruption - with higher levels of staff sickness over the winter.
Crucially though, ambulance crews themselves have faced long delays when they pick up patients and then try to deliver them to hospital staff in a busy emergency department.
In the first week of April, around one in ten patients had to wait more than an hour for their ambulance to be unloaded in England, far higher than the same week last year, and well above the 15-minute NHS target.
Another paramedic told the BBC that those kinds of waits were having a 'dangerous impact' on patient safety.
"We are doing the job to provide emergency care and to save lives, but actually now we are just an extended ward of the hospital," he said.
"I'm meant to care for a patient who had been in the back of my ambulance for 14 hours, but nobody has ever really taught me how to look after someone like that." "
Source:
https:/
Quote:
"There are different factors behind the long waiting times.
The ambulance service is seeing record levels of demand this year, as Covid restrictions have been lifted.
More than 860,000 calls to 999 were answered in England in April, 20% higher than in the same month in 2019.
There is a national shortage of paramedics across the UK, and Covid has still been causing disruption - with higher levels of staff sickness over the winter.
Crucially though, ambulance crews themselves have faced long delays when they pick up patients and then try to deliver them to hospital staff in a busy emergency department.
In the first week of April, around one in ten patients had to wait more than an hour for their ambulance to be unloaded in England, far higher than the same week last year, and well above the 15-minute NHS target.
Another paramedic told the BBC that those kinds of waits were having a 'dangerous impact' on patient safety.
"We are doing the job to provide emergency care and to save lives, but actually now we are just an extended ward of the hospital," he said.
"I'm meant to care for a patient who had been in the back of my ambulance for 14 hours, but nobody has ever really taught me how to look after someone like that." "
Source:
https:/
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