Ambulance responses

[Nick]

My figures compared the same year for both countries. Your figure for UK spend of 12% of GDP, doesn't tally with the ONS estimate of 11.9% in 2021.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/healthcareexpenditureukhealthaccountsprovisionalestimates/2021

The most recent figure for France I can find is 11.06% of GDP in 2019 (per capita was 4492 USD).
https://knoema.com/atlas/France/Health-expenditure-per-capita
If you can supply France's health expenditure figures for 2020 and 2021, I'd find them helpful.

In that year, the UK health spend was 10.2% of GDP (4313 USD per capita)...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/ukhealthaccounts/2019
https://knoema.com/atlas/United-Kingdom/Health-expenditure-per-capita

Which all goes to show that extra money has gone in the NHS since we left the EU.
An extra 2% of GDP which is £40 Billion, or £769 million a week, more than double the £350 million. So can we put the bus to bed now? 😉

[patman post]

Nice try, posting a stat that is 6 years old.

The U.K. spends 12% of GDP on healthcare (2021), France 11.1%.

My figures compared the same year for both countries. Your figure for UK spend of 12% of GDP, doesn't tally with the ONS estimate of 11.9% in 2021.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/healthcareexpenditureukhealthaccountsprovisionalestimates/2021

The most recent figure for France I can find is 11.06% of GDP in 2019 (per capita was 4492 USD).
https://knoema.com/atlas/France/Health-expenditure-per-capita
If you can supply France's health expenditure figures for 2020 and 2021, I'd find them helpful.

In that year, the UK health spend was 10.2% of GDP (4313 USD per capita)...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthcaresystem/bulletins/ukhealthaccounts/2019
https://knoema.com/atlas/United-Kingdom/Health-expenditure-per-capita

[Streetwalker]

That suggests we are getting rather poor value for money. The NHS always has money for doughnuts, but can't send an ambulance to arrive within 30 minutes. Pathetic.

I think we need to have a different set up ,too many ambulances are tied up with non emergency call outs that could be dealt with by GP's or nurses .  
The ambulance isnt a free bus ride to A&E either 

[Barry]

Nice try, posting a stat that is 6 years old.

The U.K. spends 12% of GDP on healthcare (2021), France 11.1%.

That suggests we are getting rather poor value for money. The NHS always has money for doughnuts, but can't send an ambulance to arrive within 30 minutes. Pathetic.

[Nick]

If UK taxpayers would cough up the amount say France and Germany collected and spent on their health services, there'd be a better service. Despite the NHS being lauded by every politician whenever health is under her spotlight, they fight shy of collecting enough money to run a better and reformed service...

https://fullfact.org/health/uk-health-spending-compared-france-and-germany/

Nice try, posting a stat that is 6 years old. 

The U.K. spends 12% of GDP on healthcare (2021), France 11.1%. 

[johnofgwent]

This is one area that ambulances are being prevented from doing their job. There should be a team to look after delivered patients, even if it requires the chief executive to come down and do it him/herself. Ambulances should be in and out of A&E in no more than 30 minutes and on to the next priority emergency. When I got to the hospital there were about 5 ambulances hanging around.
That is surely an area for massive improvement.

I wouldn't want the chief executive of the trust's round here to do that. They know about as much as the actors in "Casualty", probably less

There were eight on the stands at Llantarnam Grange when I got blue and two'd in with the stroke. Admittedly a medical bloke of some kind came out to triage me but he buggered off for 30 mins (I was after all top of the tree so quite rapidly brought in) 

The Red cross came out to ask if we wanted hot tea / coffee. I asked if I should stay nil by mouth and he paramedic on the crew said I was ok to have either. Imopt d for tea on the grounds coffee mucking with my heart rate was the last thing I needed 

When the red cross left I said "I thought they only worked in disaster areas". The poor woman driving the bus nearly choked on her tea and doughnut but recovered enough to say "hell, You got that right"

I said it before but it's worth saying again. I don't blame the crews or the staff it's not their fault they're doing their best in circumstances nearing a migrant refugee camp. And they were there while I was having the scariest 30 minutes of my life ever. Far scarier than the time I clinically died. Dying I can handle. The thought of my mind working full thrust unable to communicate in a body vegetating .... is not something you can stay sane pondering for long...

[Borchester]

If UK taxpayers would cough up the amount say France and Germany collected and spent on their health services, there'd be a better service. Despite the NHS being lauded by every politician whenever health is under her spotlight, they fight shy of collecting enough money to run a better and reformed service...

https://fullfact.org/health/uk-health-spending-compared-france-and-germany/

Dunno.

In terms of gdp and raw cash, the nation with the highest expenditure on health is the US. And their life expectancy is 4 years less than that of the Uk.

The problem is that we live in a world suffering from incurable epidemics of hypochondria, which was ok in the days when our hospitals were full of charming pieces of nonsense in black stockings. But these days they are staffed by tubby women who look as though they are moonlighting from their day jobs behind the counter at Greggs

[patman post]

If UK taxpayers would cough up the amount say France and Germany collected and spent on their health services, there'd be a better service. Despite the NHS being lauded by every politician whenever health is under her spotlight, they fight shy of collecting enough money to run a better and reformed service...

https://fullfact.org/health/uk-health-spending-compared-france-and-germany/

[Borchester]

Yet we are paying the highest taxes since the 40s. Where is all the money going?

Surely radical reform and investment is needed.

The money is probably going into radical reform and investment.

We currently fund the NHS to the tune of one pound in every six collected in taxation and there is no sign of the population saying well, enough is enough, time to grow some backbone. After all being a victim is not much of a life.

Time was if you were a bit under the weather you would wander the streets muttering whatever bloody rubbish occured to you. And mostly you were politely ignored, unless someone gave you a few bob or a pint.

Nowadays being a nutter is an industry.

[Barry]

Most ambulance outstations have shut down because the crews spend the time they would have spent there "on dispersed standby" in A and E car parks waiting to transfer patients. We had two die recently (patients, not crews) while waiting to be taken in to the a&e unit up the road.

This is one area that ambulances are being prevented from doing their job. There should be a team to look after delivered patients, even if it requires the chief executive to come down and do it him/herself. Ambulances should be in and out of A&E in no more than 30 minutes and on to the next priority emergency. When I got to the hospital there were about 5 ambulances hanging around.
That is surely an area for massive improvement.

[srb7677]

Last Wednesday we had a medical emergency to deal with. I called 111 for a start for advice, and a bot told me to use 111 online as a triage.
That wasted 10 minutes, then 111 online after a short time came up with a big red notice.
Phone 999 for an ambulance now

I phoned 999 for an ambulance and I and the patient spoke to them. They agreed it was an emergency and we were put in the queue for the emergency response.

"How long will it be"

Reply "It may be 2 hours or more". This was a cardiac emergency!

I ended up taking the patient to hospital myself.
The health service is broken. This is unacceptable, isn't it?

That is surely unacceptable.

It isn't just the health service either. The country seems to be falling apart. Cant get passports, cant get dentists, its a struggle to see a GP, mental health is in crisis. Adult social care is broken. There are huge backlogs in the legal system. The benefits system is not fit for purpose. Millions now relying on food banks. Yet we are paying the highest taxes since the 40s. Where is all the money going?

Surely radical reform and investment is needed.

[johnofgwent]

That's a frightening story.

As I have said elsewhere we hen I was an active scuba diver, Sarah an active Kayaker and Jennifer an active windsurfer, I paid the fees to our diving club leader to train and certify all four of us (Moira included) to "emergency first responder" standard, and then beyond that for manual defibrillator and oxygen therapy. Sarah's been trained beyond that in a course run by NHS paramedics at the hospital and Moira's been trained up additionally by St Johns paid for by the HM Courts service.

When the Dive School went out on location it was like we had a MASH unit in the convoy. If Sarah's Kayaking pals came along for a sea paddle while we were under we really were international rescue, as they included a GP and various others trained in Cliff rescue. If you fell off the cliffs or into the River Wye north of the bridge over the river north of Tintern, Sarah and the other rescue crews got the call....

I really ought to have a bloody refund of my NHS ringfenced taxes as we do the bloody job ourselves.

It shouldn't be this way. We never had to.

[johnofgwent]

Most certainly it is unacceptable but then an awful lot of the so called services are unacceptable. I have some sympathy for Ambulance crews when you hear that they suffer attacks etc from the public they try to help, but I do remember too that some years ago we had far more ambulance 'garages' and they have disappeared. For a time I used to see an ambulance parked up on the pavement at a bypass near me and they have gone from there too. I remember at the time hearing that it was positioned there because it was central to several other areas. Is it cuts or simple mismanagement? Are those in charge of the local cash spending it wisely? Circumstances suggest not. It might be interesting to spend time at the local hospital and count how many are parked up waiting. I hope the patient is ok.

Most ambulance outstations have shut down because the crews spend the time they would have spent there "on dispersed standby" in A and E car parks waiting to transfer patients. We had two die recently (patients, not crews) while waiting to be taken in to the a&e unit up the road.

I was waiting for most of my "golden hour" after the stroke and my ailment labelled me a category one alongside the non breathing unresponsive.

I confided in the two lovely ladies who transported me that I felt a total bloody fraud sitting in the back of the van with them.

Then in a split second I lost all feeling and movement in the little and fourth fingers of my left hand.

I felt a sight less fraudulent after that.

Movement eventually came back. Feeling never did in the little finger. It has felt as my mouth and lips do during dental anaesthesia for over a year now....

[T00ts]

The health service in Wales certainly is, and it's best has never exceeded England's worst since 1999.

The Welsh ambulance service is now little more than a corpse collected, it's targets were removed and replaced with less arduous guidelines which it has not met either about five years ago.

On Fri 13th Dec 2019 Moira fell down the full flight of stairs at our house, slamming into the front door and central heating radiator, breaking her eye socket, several facial bones, and several internal injuries.

Jennifer who heard the thud found her unconscious and with no respiration but fortunately still having a pulse.

She called 999 and of course these days the first question is "is the patient breathing" to which she said "no"

The despatcher launched a crew to our location and started telling Jennifer what to do. The reality is Jennifer is, as we all are here, trained emergency first responders with additional skills on top. Sarah is pretty much a battlefield medic but she was in the car with me.

Unfortunately Jennifer succeeded in restoring Moira's airway but stupidly said so when asked.

As a result the ambulance was stood down and told to return to base.

I had to take Moira in to A&E myself, risking paralysis through undetected neck injury seeing as she fell head first downstairs.

I am prevented from making Ng a complaint because Moira wants to forget the whole thing and the health authority refuse to accept my complaint as it would "breach GDPR rights to privacy"

So the c**ts get off Scot free.

If course if Moira was not in middle class employment in the Civil Service the papers would be all up in arms over such failures. But she is, so they aren't.

That's a frightening story.

[johnofgwent]

Last Wednesday we had a medical emergency to deal with. I called 111 for a start for advice, and a bot told me to use 111 online as a triage.
That wasted 10 minutes, then 111 online after a short time came up with a big red notice.
Phone 999 for an ambulance now

I phoned 999 for an ambulance and I and the patient spoke to them. They agreed it was an emergency and we were put in the queue for the emergency response.

"How long will it be"

Reply "It may be 2 hours or more". This was a cardiac emergency!

I ended up taking the patient to hospital myself.
The health service is broken. This is unacceptable, isn't it?

The health service in Wales certainly is, and it's best has never exceeded England's worst since 1999.

The Welsh ambulance service is now little more than a corpse collected, it's targets were removed and replaced with less arduous guidelines which it has not met either about five years ago.

On Fri 13th Dec 2019 Moira fell down the full flight of stairs at our house, slamming into the front door and central heating radiator, breaking her eye socket, several facial bones, and several internal injuries.

Jennifer who heard the thud found her unconscious and with no respiration but fortunately still having a pulse.

She called 999 and of course these days the first question is "is the patient breathing" to which she said "no"

The despatcher launched a crew to our location and started telling Jennifer what to do. The reality is Jennifer is, as we all are here, trained emergency first responders with additional skills on top. Sarah is pretty much a battlefield medic but she was in the car with me.

Unfortunately Jennifer succeeded in restoring Moira's airway but stupidly said so when asked.

As a result the ambulance was stood down and told to return to base.

I had to take Moira in to A&E myself, risking paralysis through undetected neck injury seeing as she fell head first downstairs.

I am prevented from making Ng a complaint because Moira wants to forget the whole thing and the health authority refuse to accept my complaint as it would "breach GDPR rights to privacy"

So the c**ts get off Scot free.

If course if Moira was not in middle class employment in the Civil Service the papers would be all up in arms over such failures. But she is, so they aren't.