Elderly Parent had a fall - Ambulance took 7 hrs

[Washout]

I thought that when you went into a modern A&E they would register your name into a system and track you as you moved through the departments. This is a brand new multimillion pound hospital and they are still using white boards to track patients. My wife required a number of scans and each time she was moved to a new department we had to explain who she was and why she was here etc. There was no ticket system to track her details or even name!

While we were waiting in one ward a woman came in and gave a letter to the doctor who was seeing her. He returned later and asked to see the letter again. The woman explained he had it. He went off looking and was unable to find it!

The building is world class but it just seems haphazard the way things are running internally. Coming from and IT support background and working within a multi layered team it just seems incredible there are not some basic measures in place. The doctors are great, but you can tell the people running things have probably never worked in a professional corporate environment.

IT systems within the nhs are a nightmare. There's so many compliance rules and laws they have to keep that any kind of tied up integrated system becomes admin hell and they end up just giving up on it (after wasting 10's if not 100's of millions) and developing their own internal systems.
Things like staff in some departments can't see sensitive data from others. Just need to relax those laws and apply a bit of common sense.

 

[Freakbro]

It isn't an emergency, he needs to get to hospital that day but it isn't a case of a few minutes delay = death. thus you also had a wait when you got to A&E as the staff there also agreed that it wasn't an emergency - it isn't like they rushed him into surgery as soon as he arrived or anything.

He was conscious, had someone with him and was indoors. It does suck that it took 7 hours and must not have been pleasant for him You'd hope that an hour or two would be sufficient.

I think that's the point, when they first said it would be a couple of hours, not ideal, but they accepted that. Mum was with him and if his condition deteriorated then that could have been reported. But seven hours does seem unacceptable to me, and if it was because of other incidents and not the call being lost in the system, then it just shows how underfunded the Lincs NHS (Which we hear all the time, Lincs trusts are in deep trouble)

I also know it's a judgement call, seems phonemonkey below would have classed it as an emergency, different area/person different judgement

Ouch that sounds horrific .

Although is the hospital far away? Could you have not got a taxi or driven there?

Due to the nature of his injury he just said he would not be able to get in or out of the car, couldn't bend legs, waist etc. If he said he was able to I would have taken him but seeing how he was at 10 that night after they had given him pain relief....as I said, I've never heard him yelp like like before He is a tough old man, it's sad to see him becoming so frail.

I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. Certainly my service would have treated both the head and hip injury as an emergency and responded appropriately. I'd happily discuss how we triage calls with you if it would help your feedback - e-mail in trust.

Thank you

Its disgraceful.

Given the circumstance how can people say its not life threatening? The guy could easily have ruptured something internally or the knock on his head could have caused a clot/stroke who knows what.

I'd issue a formal complaint, totally unacceptable FB.

Hope your dads OK FB

I agree that it's not just as simple as it's a fall, you're ok.

And thanks, he's got a bed made downstairs now, as he won't be going up the stairs for a while. Though the Dr said just go up them on your bum...

Did he die or suffer permanent debilitation?

That's why it wasn't an emergency.

It's sounds callous, but it's the reality.

I appreciate it's a judgement call, but as someone above who works in the service has said, his trust would class that as an emergency.

Also, like I've said, I'm not out to make a formal complaint, just give feedback and try and find out if it was due to lots of other heart attacks, strokes, RTCs or if something went wrong with the call centre administration that day

 

[Minstadave]

Did he die or suffer permanent debilitation?

That's why it wasn't an emergency.

It's sounds callous, but it's the reality.

If he had fractured his hip then the recommendation is to undergo surgery within 12-24 hours, after that mortality starts increasing rapidly. So a 7hr wait is a significant issue for a suspected broken hip.

 

[TheVoice]

If they're still on All4, watch the first couple of episodes of the latest series of 999: What's Your Emergency? They'll give you a glimpse into just what the ambulance services are having to deal with.

 

[The Running Man]

Health tourism is not really an issue. It is a tiny fraction of the cost and can be gotten back but our poor admin and management of it means we actually claim next to nothing of it. Outside the EU that story is different but that poor management is to blame for not having a system that can charge these health tourists.

As for immigrants, they use the NHS far less and also pay tax when they are over here. Their money comes into the pockets of our government when we didnt pay for their education and neither will we pay for their treatment after they go back home to retire when people are the most costly.

Boob jobs and sex changes are just media fluff stories. They should not be performed at the NHS cost and luckily take up a negligable fraction of NHS costs, like health tourism and usualy grumble immigrants grumble.

As for IVF, i believe it should be supplemented but not fully paid for. It is expensive and TBH if you cannot afford it, can you really afford the kids?


The biggest NHS costs are boring, such as poor management, extravagant pay to irrelevant top tier management jobs which are held by politicians (and their mates) rather than health professionals and extortionate costs of private hiring of nurses and doctors when there is insufficient NHS staff due to cuts to employees and increased demand in NHS services.

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style...s-right-to-fight-for-free-medical-care-on-NHS

teenage migrant wins right to fight for free medical care on NHS

The teenager and his mother came to the UK in June last year on a six-month visitor’s visa.

They immediately applied for asylum and permission to stay on human rights grounds as well as seeking out medical treatment.




Cool story bro.

 

[Malevolence]

There used to be a large Roma family in the next street to me, they were an absolute ****ing nightmare and ended up getting evicted but that's a story for another thread. Anyway, they used to have a constant stream of female 'relatives' all coming over here to give birth on the NHS before scuttling back to their medieval existence in Romania. At the last count, before the police dragged them out of the house, it was 16, but there could've been some more that we never noticed.

I wonder how much all those cost the NHS?

 

[Avenged7Fold]

Like i said only a small fraction compare to the major wastage.

If they apply for asylum legitimately for human rights reason, i see no issue. Vast majority of NHS wastage is not due to immigrants. Painting it as the main issue and focusing on that will only serve to give the government a lifeline until people realise its done nothing

 

[tlrBeta]

There used to be a large Roma family in the next street to me, they were an absolute ****ing nightmare and ended up getting evicted but that's a story for another thread. Anyway, they used to have a constant stream of female 'relatives' all coming over here to give birth on the NHS before scuttling back to their medieval existence in Romania. At the last count, before the police dragged them out of the house, it was 16, but there could've been some more that we never noticed.

I wonder how much all those cost the NHS?

Very little compared to x % of population which include the alcheys, the druggies, the obese patients, the smokers, sore feet people, missed appointments...shall i go on?

 

[Malevolence]

Very little compared to x % of population which include the alcheys, the druggies, the obese patients, the smokers, sore feet people, missed appointments...shall i go on?

You mean people who have actually paid something into the system, rather than a bunch of freeloading parasitical criminals?

 

[Dis86]

If he had fractured his hip then the recommendation is to undergo surgery within 12-24 hours, after that mortality starts increasing rapidly. So a 7hr wait is a significant issue for a suspected broken hip.

Was actually about to post that. A lot of people seem to forget that hip fractures can be a death sentence and when not they can also be - for lack of a better word - crippling.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Can someone who works inside the NHS explain the root cause of such a slow service in recent years. Is it over population? Rise in elderly people? Lower numbers of ambulance crews?

Some reasons have been answered but tonight I passed A&E and there were at least 20 ambulances outside. This means that Paramedics are with the patient until they can pass them on properly to A&E meaning they can't go on a shout for hours in some cases.
Add to the problem that our A&E should only cope with about 250 cases a day but we get over 400, a year ago we opened up Ambulatory Emergency Care for 30 a day walking wounded but that has now gone up to about 120.
We also have a major problem that 150 patients a day need to be admitted to hospital beds but we have over 250 patients ready for discharge but nowhere to go.

 

[tlrBeta]

You mean people who have actually paid something into the system, rather than a bunch of freeloading parasitical criminals?

You're making two assumptions there.

Go and sit in A&E for the night, your assumptions will change.

 

[Raumarik]

Fine them

NHS management are idiots

They complain about lack of funding....well here's one!

NHS Management can't do anything about that, get onto your MP about it.

 

[hurfdurf]

People voted for a party who want to dismantle the NHS, they are underfunding it on purpose to bring in a gap for private companies. The country wanted this. I am sorry you are suffering because of it.

 

[Evole]

Well with so many migrants coming in, what do you expect? It has nothing to do with cuts or government shady policies to what it seems like drown NHS and replace with Insurance like in the US.

Migrants I tell you, the sole and only reason.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Well with so many migrants coming in, what do you expect? It has nothing to do with cuts or government shady policies to what it seems like drown NHS and replace with Insurance like in the US.

Migrants I tell you, the sole and only reason.

Complete and utter crap.

And besides other points I outlined the cost to the NHS for DNAs (Did Not Attends) is millions upon millions. Funnily enough migrants keep their appointments.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Health tourists certainly keep their appointments, if you are flying in on the "NHS Special" from Nigeria you have come a long way!

The billions that health tourism costs the NHS is discussed here by a whistle blowing UK surgeon with backing from his fellow doctors:




How NHS health tourism is costing us billions: a surgeon's story

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/04/international-health-service/

 

[Freakbro]

The billions that health tourism costs the NHS is discussed here by a whistle blowing UK surgeon with backing from his fellow doctors:

How NHS health tourism is costing us billions: a surgeon's story

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/04/international-health-service/

That article only speculates, there is no proof....as it says it may cost billions

Anyway, the wife of a local Ambulance driver works at my place so she had a word with him yesterday and even he said my dad shouldn't have been left that long at all.