Emergency Services Waiting Times.

[Paigntonian]

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.

[fbg40]

I totally agree with some of the latest responses to this post, in particular the time ambulances have to wait to offload patients at A & E depts. This happened to a very good friend of mine just before Christmas last year. He was taken to hospital by ambulance ( his GP called 999 for the ambulance)and upon arrival there were 13 ambulances waiting to hand over patients. 3.5 hours later he was admitted to the A & E department. 'Nuff said.
FBG40

[237SJ]

This was discussed on Radio 2 this morning. There were some horror stories and part of the problem seemed to be that the ambulances can't discharge their patients into the hospital because the receiving times were so long. The Government were very quick to spend a shed load of money on building Nightingale hospitals so maybe they could build holding areas where patients can be left in the care of medics (from the Militiary, bank nursing, private sector etc) thus enabling the ambulances to go off and deal with more emgergencies

[237SJ]

^ But then again, that's probably not going to happen because the public sector can't see outside of the box

[jno]

do the Nightingale hospitals still exist, 237SJ? Because that sounds like a perfectly sensible idea.

[fbg40]

jno
I was speaking to another retired fireman recently concerning the Nightigale hospitals and he said tha he helped to construct these "Temporary Hospitals" but they have now all been taken down.
FBG40

[237SJ]

Yes, they were taken down. The London one had something like 50 patients in it. I considered volunteering to work there but nobody was needed. My point was that if the Gov can build something like that at great cost and speed then maybe the NHS can build a smaller scale system to manage incoming patients who can't be immediately accommodated in the main hospital.

[Peter Pedant]

Nightingales solved a problem which didnt come to pass and have now gone - ventilator beds only for covid
It transpired that the need for ventilation was a good predictor of death in the first wave.
first wave, over sixty, 20% those admitted died, 80% to those admitted to ICU.

horses for courses