Ambulance waiting times.

Like the lady who lives in Belgium, I live in France and called an ambulance when I suffered from kidney stones ...although the usual questions were asked ;Do you need an ambulance, or are you able to come to the Urgence'...I couldn't drive myself there as was in too much agony and being sick, so said sorry, no ...it then arrived in 15 minutes ...I was scanned, taken to a bigger hospital, operated on at 6.00a,m and back the next day by ambulance ! the service here is brilliant and some of the reason I think is that you get what you pay for ...a visit to the doc is 25 euros, a home visit is 35 euros and we pay more than200 euros a month as a top up insurance (not private) ...why is there so much reluctance from people in the UK, including my friends, who say WE PAID NI and are not paying again ...BUT so did I, and would be happy to pay again as they put it, for a better NHS .....tobe quite honest, I DREAD that if we have to return (aged 71 and 85, (85 with Parkinsons, dementia and cancer) it would without doubt be a death sentence (maybe thats what MAY wants to happen to all OAPs !!)

I've only ever had positive experiences with the ambulance service. Whenever I have called them out they have arrived in minutes. Usually a paramedic in a car followed quite quickly by an ambulance, I've only called them when it's essential, possibly life threatening but the response has been great every time.

Don't want to labour the point, but when our family asked us to relocate back to the UK after not living there since 1975, one of the principle factors was the problems with the NHS. Comparisons are odious of course, but it is doubtful this type of incident would happen in our area. We count ourselves very lucky to have such a wonderful health service in France.
We have decided to stay here

When my friend’s son had his diabetic hypo they couldn’t carry him down the stairs and into their own car. He is six foot tall and they are a fragile elderly couple.

Not everyone has a car, anyway. I don’t, for a start.

Tillybelle

What a dreadful state of affairs Travelsafar - what if the lady had broken her hip? It could have been dangerous to lift her and get her in and out of a car. Well done to you all for taking such good care of her.

I recieve results of monthly blood test by email from my GP the same day if they are taken by him before 12.00noon next morning before 10.oo am if after. He sends me a copy of the results in full and also to my Cardiologist.
I then recieve a text from him with regard to my anti-coagulent medication. Not Warfarin it is seldom used here.
My major health issues are in the data on my I.D. card with my permission. This means paramedics etc can just put the card into a reader and see what medication I take and why.
If a little country like Belguim can do this in 3 languages why can the UK not. do not please go down the health Insurance route, if you wish to find out about the way it works here it is all in the post about my new knee !!!!

More staff?
I have found no great improvement in services since the much increased non-medical managerial level was introduced. More doctors and nurses for sure..... appropriately clad please so that they may be identified as such. Bring back the white coat
There would seem also to be a great deal of confusion in communication between departments in hospitals and , similarly, between services performed outside hospitals and the results being delivered back to the appropriate place. I go to pick up my own blood test results and relay them to the hospital department as it seems to take 3-4 months otherwise. One consultant asks ME for the results of the examinations carried out in other departments otherwise my visit is wasted.
think I'm still compos mentis enough to explain

Over the last few years hospitals have been closed 000.s of beds lost etc .populations has risen by few millions and yet various govt have ignored the facts .pfi was introduced by the labour govt .politicians are not with it at all .
I have just had back a reply from a minister his reply was as expected ******.I have lost both parents is hospitals unexpectedly .with apologies from 2 CEO,s wage increases will not help we need larger hospitals more beds more staff when will all politicians get it right NOW

I live in Ireland and our health system is on its knees
If you have to go to A&E you could wait up to 24 hours to actually see a doctor
But once your in their system they look after you very well
But such a wait
The Doctors & Nurses are run off their feet

Ambulance service is prioritised based on whether the condition is life threatening or not. Broken arm no matter how badly is NOT life threatening so take her or him in a car yourselves. Diabetic hypo if the person is unconscious can be. Too many people in this country now stretching services to the limit combined with lack of common sense.

Austerity? Wait till they actually achieve Brexit! People will be in such a terrible state, jobs will disappear, the NHS will collapse, and there will be high crime.
I'm selfishly glad I am old and not too long to live. But my Grandchildren? With the state of the world anyway, I weep for them.

P.S. on my 13 hour ambulance wait during which I was alone and could not move. I was kept in hospital 5 days and still having treatment nearly 2 years following.

travelsafar I was unable to move with such severe pain it made me scream. Home on my own. The ambulance service had to prioritise life threatening conditions. My ambulance was called at 10 a.m. It arrived at 11p.m.
I could not reach the toilet during this time.

I am being berated on another thread for explaining how my knee replacement op will be carried out here in Belguim.
More or less told I am lying about the treatment I will recieve, then I read this.
Waiting time here in Brussels is between 5 and 7 minutes, and I AM talking from experience.

I don't know about everyone else, but I think this austerity has gone way past being ridiculous and hurtful to so many of the poorer people in society. I say enough is enough. People should vote with their feet at the next election and I'm quite sure they will. Let's get the great back in Britain.

Thank you, youngagain. There are far too many people using these services. If you visit A&E you will see many people there who just use the service instead of their Dr. I even heard one person say they hadn't signed into a doctor's practice as it was quicker going to A&E!

Hi, we've had good and bad experiences. When my daughter snapped her arm in half, open fracture which was bleeding, we waited 1hr 45mins for an ambulance, only to be phoned back and told to take her ourselves. I drove her by myself, with her hysterical and being sick. As soon as we got to the hospital, she was seen and given oramorph. A & E doctor couldn't understand why ambulance didn't come. Ended up having surgery, then in hospital for 6 days, then another 5 days with another operation because infected.

More recently same daughter had a diabetic hypo seizure, ambulance arrived within 20 minutes and they gave her a thorough checkup. We didn't need to go to hospital but paramedics told us not to hesitate to call 999 if it happens again.

We hear all the time about how stretched the NHS is and how the ambulance service are under great pressure etc., but no-one seems to mention the fact that the population has increased so much and none of the services are keeping up with that - NHS, education, housing, transport etc. It is all very well for the government to say they are giving this amount or that amount to whatever service but this still does not seem to take into account the continual increase in population and the funding is not keeping pace with this. We are losing so many services because funding is not available or decreasing all the time instead of actually keeping pace with the population increase. Sorry, rant over.

Teetime is right! I see this all the time in London, drug and alcohol related call outs. Also, casualty filled to brimming with people who don't need to be there. It's really disgraceful how the nhs is abused these days. Something ought to be done about it, and fast.

We probably don’t realise how bad things are in NHS until we need it. In my area we have Firstt Responders who are volunteers, who will come very quickly, administer limited treatment. They have oxygen and defibrillators. They stay with the patient until the ambulance arrives. They save lives. The rely totally on donations from the community. My fund-raising efforts are for them.

I think we haven't factored in here the significant amount of abuse of the ambulance service which contributes to these delays. As I have said on here before we have a neighbour who constantly calls for an ambulance due to his mental health problems and they send the vehicle but para medics can do nothing - he needs mental health services which are in a parlous state in the East Midlands due to underfunding. He is only one patient - this is happening all over the country. Thinking of the original post ambulances are employed all over our cities and towns at night to pick up folk who have had too much alcohol- picking up one drunk can put an ambulance out of the commission for the whole night. We need to address these and a multiplicity of other issues before we chuck a load of cash at the ambulance service for people to carry on abusing it.

Absolutely disgusting that our NHS has been run into the ground like this.

Last monday night at about 5pm my 82 year old neighbour managed to call me when she collapsed. She has severe COPD and is still receiving chemo for breast cancer along with numerous other health problems. She was struggling to breathe and was slipping in and out of conciousness. We waited over 2 hours for an ambulance then waited nearly 3 hours for her to be seen by a doctor at A & E. The nursing staff were absolutley brilliant but were quite obviously overwhelmed.

The son of a friend of mine had a diabetic hypo, potentially very dangerous, and they waited three hours for an ambulance. It is shocking. On the other hand when I fell at home over a month ago I am told the ambulance came quite quickly. Luck of the draw?

My brother in law waited five hours for an ambulance. He has multiple health issues and is on dialysis. I called three times, begging for an ambulance, saying he was deteriorating fast . It turned out that he had a perforated bowel. He made it to the operating theatre with minutes to spare and then suffered a heart attack.
When we eventually arrived at the hospital, the ambulances were stacked up outside with patients in them. There was no room inside the hospital for them.