Due to increased demand, people who contact 999 because they are experiencing a heart attack or stroke are being urged to travel to the hospital on their own.
The West Midlands Ambulance Service, which said last week that it was under ‘severe pressure’, confirmed a change to the script used by its 999 call handlers to suggest patients get themselves to hospital at peak times.
A leaked staff memo on November 29 said the change was needed due to patients’ long waits.
It said category three and four 999 calls patients with urgent abdominal pain or who have fallen or are vomiting will be told: ‘The ambulance service is under significant pressure and we don’t have an ambulance available to respond to you. It may be a number of hours before one is available.
‘Is there any way you can arrange to safely make your own way to a hospital emergency department?’
The memo, seen by the Sunday Times, says that when the ambulance service is under the highest pressure, as it was last week, the request will also apply to category two calls.
These are patients who may be having a stroke or heart attack or have suffered severe burns and who should be seen within 18 minutes.
All ambulance services have altered their scripts for periods of surging demand, with some replicating the West Midlands message while others warn of the prolonged waits patients will encounter.
Last week, six of England’s 10 ambulance services were operating at maximum alert.
This means they were facing ‘extreme pressure’ with a risk of ‘service failure’. The remaining four were all at ‘severe pressure’.
Across the Midlands last week, some patients who should have been seen within 18 minutes were waiting nearly an hour on average.
At one point there were 150 emergency calls in the region without an ambulance available.
The West Midlands Ambulance Service said: ‘When ambulances are delayed handing their patient over at hospital, they are unable to respond to the next call.
‘There is a direct correlation between hospital handover delays and our ability to get to patients in the community quickly.’
There have been regurgitated warnings about the failure in NHS emergency care since the end of COVID-19. Thousands are harmed by lengthy ambulance waits.
This year coroners have sent 33 warnings to ambulance trusts after deaths linked to delays.
How on earth does one make their own way to the hospital when they’re having a stroke or heart attack – this is utter madness and it’s a disgrace.
If our government doesn’t intervene and make any kind of reform in the healthcare system, people will undoubtedly perish as a result of this terrible service, and yet they’re pushing stroke adverts on TV which tell us to act FAST and ends with ‘your NHS is there for you.’
Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords should bow their heads in shame at the way they are treating UK citizens. If they were a company people could take them to court for the way we are being treated, but as it stands, there appears to be nothing that we can do.
However, the Ambulance Services aren’t always at fault. After transporting a patient to the hospital, an ambulance is essentially rendered inoperable for the hours it must wait to release the patient to A&E.
The UK used to be the envy of other nations, but today we are a disgrace and have been reduced to services that are almost third-world, but I guess we should be thankful because our NHS health care is free and we are not faced with having to pay for our treatment before we are admitted. In most nations, they would just let a person die right in front of their eyes.
It’s not free, though, as other people are unaware. We should be provided with a mediocre level of service because we pay for it through taxes. If he could see what was happening, Aneurin Bevan would be rolling in his grave.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 