Today was the worst shift I've ever had in the ambulance service.
The entire system has collapsed. We're no longer practicing emergency medicine. We're just desperately trying to put out fires & triage the sickest patients but it's just not enough.
The entire system has collapsed. We're no longer practicing emergency medicine. We're just desperately trying to put out fires & triage the sickest patients but it's just not enough.
There are literally hundreds and hundreds of emergency calls in the stack with no resources to send.
This is true up and down the country. People are dying waiting for ambulances as we queue outside ED's, themselves in crisis & experiencing critical incidents.
This is true up and down the country. People are dying waiting for ambulances as we queue outside ED's, themselves in crisis & experiencing critical incidents.
We queue with sick patients. Patients so sick, that years ago, would have been immediately seen in Resus.
Now however, they are looked after in the backs of ambulances, or in corridors, or cohorting areas.
Now however, they are looked after in the backs of ambulances, or in corridors, or cohorting areas.
We watch these patients deteriorating, sometimes dying in front of us, desperately trying to help them but powerless as the system is so utterly broken that there is simply no space, no bed, no doctor that isn't already treating someone equally as sick.
We queue outside ED for entire shifts. We finish hours late, often having had no break, no sustenance aside from a hastily snatched hospital biscuit & maybe a cup of water from the cooler.
We queue & our radio's sound constantly, with general broadcasts for Category 1 patients, from dispatchers & control staff equally desperate, trying to find anyone that can respond.
Except there is no one. There is no available resource to respond.
Except there is no one. There is no available resource to respond.
Patients, relatives, loved ones are desperately calling 999 begging for help as their world crumbles around them & there is simply no one available to help.
We're stretched to capacity & beyond.
We're stretched to capacity & beyond.
I cannot stress enough how morally injurious it is to crews, ED staff and control staff to hear broadcast after broadcast of patients in cardiac arrest, with their family members desperately resuscitating them, knowing there is no available resource to send.
Being trained to help, surrounded by the kit to help, but being physically unable to help as you are stuck queuing outside equally broken Emergency Departments is soul destroying.
The NHS was the greatest healthcare system in the world, but it's utterly broken & has collapsed.
The NHS was the greatest healthcare system in the world, but it's utterly broken & has collapsed.
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