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Quote: Originally posted by jonbob71 on 23/9/2014

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Mmmm
As a paramedic perhaps I can shed a little light on the way things work.

Firstly there have been no real term cuts in spending to the NHS, the main problem is that by and large due to advances in treatment people are living longer and those who would have died ten years ago due to heart conditions, cancer, serious trauma,stroke etc go on to live a normal and fulfilling life. It is very difficult to predict what goes through the front door of any hospital department. Its not a case of cutting costs but rather increase in demand year on year.

2. There will never be enough ambulances for everyone, that is why ambulance control use a phone triage system, they have to, medical emergencies are prioritised and ambulances assigned accordingly, this is a dynamic system and is constantly changing minute by minute so unfortunately you may get pushed down the que depending on your set of symptoms or circumstances, its an unfortunate fact of life and is the same all over the world, whether you pay for your healthcare or not.

3. your emergency will always seem more important than someone elses, unfortunately a mechanical fall, where a person is conscious and breathing with no catastrophic haemorrhage will not be as high a priority as someone having a cardiac arrest, heart attack symptoms or a stroke, these are all time critical, life threatening emergencies, however someone who has fallen outside will be a higher priority than someone who has fallen inside.A half hour response with a service stretched to its limit is not good, but its not bad either, remember the target time for an injury such as this is to respond to 75% of these cases within 19 minutes.

4. Don't be swayed by media reports of drunks or drug addicts clogging up a&e, yes people who are intoxicated do end up there but mainly because of injury caused by intoxication, and they have just as much right to be treated for this as anyone else.

5. I used to work from a station which ran just two ambulances and two responder cars, combined with the three other stations in the area I work, the total number of ambulances was about 10 I think and 6 cars, this was seven years ago. Now we run from a modern central hub running 25+ ambulances and about 8 cars, yet covering the same area, I work twelve hour shifts and have one 3/4 hr break, which more often than not is more than 8 hours into the shift, there is no down time anymore, without exception we all go from job to job with no respite, i am on the go from the moment I get to work until I finish my shift, and to finish an hour late each shift is the norm.

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