Ambulances are really helpful to us in our time of need, but occasionally, they take a little longer than usual to get to you. It’s usually not their fault. People jump to all sorts of conclusions, but rarely the right one.
In recent years, there has been a rise in calling an ambulance for non-emergency use and sometimes because they cannot get a GP’s appointment any time soon.
They do this in the hope of seeing a doctor sooner, but if it is not life-threatening, you could be in for a long wait on those hard metal seats.
Because the A&E department is getting clogged up with non-urgent cases, this has a knock-on effect, delaying ambulances from reaching people who need help and causing delays for people in an ambulance trying to get into A&E.
I heard about an incident where a lady called the ambulance service, stating that her husband was having difficulty breathing.
They arrived slightly quicker than the lady thought they would, only to find the lady’s husband had disappeared to the shop to buy some cigarettes.
The ambulance was tied up for 30 minutes while they waited for him to return and checked him over, and he was fine.
This is becoming more common because the waiting times for GP appointments can be a couple of weeks or more, and they don’t want to wait.
Do they really need to call an ambulance, though? That’s the question.
Luckily, hoax callers are pretty rare, so I am informed, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen, of course.
I recently read an article in the national press about this, and apparently, some people are habitual hoaxers who call the ambulance service several times a day.
They know exactly what to say to the call handler to get to the top of the triage list, often saying things like, “I have chest pains,” or “I am having difficulty breathing,” which triggers a level 1 response.
I often wondered what goes through a hoaxer’s head, and imagine for a moment a child is in desperate need of a paramedic because the child is choking, or someone has had an accident in the home and is bleeding badly.
Both of these would warrant urgent assistance, and the hoaxer has tied up vital resources so they can get a thrill of seeing ‘blue lights’ racing up their street.
It really makes my blood boil, it really does, but I have thought they may be suffering from mental health or social issues, and because funding is virtually non-existent for these services, they cannot source the help they may need.
Just a thought.
Over the last 8 years or so, we have experienced severe cutbacks as the government attempted to balance the books, causing many problems for all emergency services.
But this has led to cutbacks in social care and mental health, too.
Much of the social care and mental health departments only work 9 – 5 because of staff shortages.
They have huge waiting lists for the people who need their services, so the downward spiral starts.
This then puts pressure on the ambulance and police service to try and help these people who have social issues or mental health issues, and then they get taken to A&E, which slows that down because of the staff cuts, as they can only work 9 – 5.
People will always call for an ambulance, and in most cases, an ambulance is necessary to help someone who is having a terrible day.
But equally, we will also get people calling an ambulance because they cannot get a GP appointment for a couple of weeks.
They think they will go to the front of the queue, but very rarely do, unless it’s life-threatening, of course.
We need to address this issue and allocate funding to areas like mental health, social care, and more GPs.
If we don’t, A&E departments will continue to bear the burden, pushing them to the breaking point.
Ambulance services, police services, and charities that provide these services will also feel the strain.
So, do we need to call an ambulance? If it’s life-threatening, YES.
People will always abuse the ambulance service, and this will continue until the government addresses its funding and budget allocation to restore the NHS and associated services to their former status as the envy of the world.
But in the meantime, perhaps more people should learn first aid skills to help reduce non-emergency call-outs for the ambulance service.
In our work-based first aid courses, such as Emergency First Aid at Work and First Aid at Work, we help delegates understand when to call an ambulance and when it might be more appropriate to take a casualty to a walk-in centre or a GP’s surgery.
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