Before the Conservatives started cutting frontline emergency services, ambulances could usually be relied on to arrive within minutes of being called:
Speed of response is especially important in emergencies where the patient is in cardiac arrest, in which delays of minutes or even seconds can mean the difference between life and death.
But today, after 7 years of Tory cuts, the average waiting times is nearer to 28 minutes.
And a whistleblower at a large Ambulance Trust has revealed emergency patients are now sometimes having to wait hours for an ambulance to arrive – leading to scores of deaths.
An unnamed non-executive director of the East of England Ambulance Trust has leaked a dossier of recent ambulance call outs – with response times from initial call to times of arrival – and the outcomes for the patients.
It shows patients dying after having to wait as long as 16 hours for an ambulance:
Who is stupid enough to keep voting for this?
Pride's Purge 
Reblogged this on sdbast.
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Beggars belief totally unacceptable MORE money needed we have it bought votes to keep her in power .millions overseas STOP ✋ look after the nhs. It looks after you .
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You are right Tom! Minutes are desperately important….my husbamd was in the job and frustrated by cuts causing deaths. Who continues to vote Tory? Who are these people? I have no idea how private ambulances work….do these rich arrogant Tories with private health insurance, have ambulances waiting in their driveways just in case? ________________________________
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Take a look at http://www.ambulanceresponsetimes.co.uk/
It’s clear that the East of England has a much worse problem with ambulance response times than anywhere else in the UK and it’s been constant for quite a few years. It’s much worse even than Scotland, where the distances are so much bigger. Since it’s just the East region and it’s been constant since 2010/11 then it can’t just be the Tories’ fault. If Tory underfunding was to blame then it should be country-wide and getting worse since 2010/11. It isn’t, so there’s something else going wrong in the East region.
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xraypat – There isn’t a private emergency ambulance service. People with private healthcare have to use the same 999 service as everybody else. Of course after that they often get better and faster treatment.
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Reblogged this on hilary77blog.
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The Tories have a plan. It’s called culling (they do it with animals too) Cut the basic services and save money. It’s cheaper to have a family pay for the funeral than to treat the patients in hospital
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Isnt this manslaughter through wilful neglect by Hunt? Or is he not accountable by a prison sentence.?
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This is a report we in Gloucestershire which concluded that lives were being put at risk, that was in 2014-2015.
We knew then that this was a national policy, clearly being directed from Government that hid behind the services forced to make cuts that would not have been their choice.
Underfunding putting Gloucestershire ambulance service and patients lives at risk.
The pressure of financial constraints forces managers to restructure services, that reduces the quality and quantity of services the ambulance service provides.
This is not the service those managers choose to provide and ambulance staff suffer extra pressure to take risks with patient care, that they feel is essential, due to inappropriate cover and reduced qualified manpower.
Monetary constraints mean that de-skilling is used to reduce budgetary commitments, this means fewer highly qualified staff available to cope with emergencies. At present there is no Triage service available in the county; that would help in properly allocating levels of service to a particular situation. With an increasing population, extra stress on services is being caused by the reduction of paramedic cover.
The current situation involves the reduction of paramedic cover at Staverton and Stroud, where ambulances with higher levels of equipment will be replaced by “Patient Support Vehicles,” and manned by Intermediate Care Assistants rather than Paramedics, not only does this mean less equipment carried on the vehicle but Care Assistants need guidance from paramedics to carry out the same responsibilities.
The merging of services has also created fractionalisation of cover, as ambulances are diverted to higher priority regions. Gloucestershire is ranked third and therefore ambulances are diverted elsewhere, which leaves Gloucestershire depleted; this puts peoples lives in Glos at an unacceptable risk. Stacking becomes inevitable and stresses the system beyond what is safe practice.
In Summary:
• Staverton and Stroud will be downgraded with Patient Support Vehicle, losing two highly trained Paramedics ( De-skilling).
• Lack of Triage service means levels of service and co-ordination put patients at risk or avoidable misuse of service provision.
• With an increasing population in Gloucester an increase in high standard service is required, not the reduction being planned to cover budget constraints.
• Transferring emergency trucks to other regions of the south west leaves Gloucestershire dangerously exposed.
• Staff moral is at an all time low, stress is increasing amongst workforce, undue pressure is placed on personnel to take risks with peoples lives and their professional careers.
• With the possible imminent privatisation of the Patient Transport Service, those costs are met by the South West Ambulance Service, which may impact unduly on the Budget allocation of SWAS and to which they will have no control over.
This could then lead to further cuts in the A&E emergency service.
These measures designed to stay within budget, will impact to the detriment of the service and the safety of the people of Gloucestershire.
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Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.
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the curent NHS has become an unaccountable monstrosity – deliberately engineered by the cabal known as the tory party – it has its own failings which are rarely investigated properly and it continues to blunderbus its way along – the health of the nation is no longer its main aim – its aim is to produce profits for its numerous partners (in crime)
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I think the biggest con is Direct National insurance contributions for what is basically now a private corp…the only thing thats left in the public purse are the wages and power outlay .. the contributions are triple that outlay so someone (ones) are getting full pockets from the peoples (forced) tax funding. Needs a good looking at by a real lawyer/accountant that one, imo.
I am thinking (but probably wrong) private it all and make the (gov management) redundant once and for all…there is your 350 million extra for your pocket to afford a doc when needed, no direct tax,just tax on whatever your preferred is at point.
No house of lords, no house of commons, no tax pot bleeding careers and ”im a leader you know” show….unless I suppose your the queen /king ,then you get a hat a wave and a shed full of gold.
Failing that vote Jeremy and keep fingers crossed he’s the real one…but don’t hold your breath because something happens to good intentions on the other side of that 10 door.
Perhaps I have gone all socialist or loyalist or privatist or just got ist on the fun of being,but something’ isn’t now and wasn’t then either’ ….right.
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What is REALLY crippling the NHS trusts in England are the ridiculously high interest rates they’re having to pay on their massive PFI contract debts. PFI was first started under John Major, then massively expanded by Labour, and is now continuing under the Tory PF2 scheme.
The government could borrow the money at far lower interest rates, pay off the PFI debts and so save the NHS billions of pounds. The trouble is that nobody, not even Corbyn, will commit to doing that.
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Ed, In reality debt, (surprisingly) is not the problem. The problem is that Neo-Liberal politicians are deliberately underfunding the NHS in order to undermine it then privatise it.
Theresa May has now admitted that she will include the NHS in any trade deal with Trump. She of course has not emphatically stated that but she won’t rule it out. That meaning it is being ruled in.
To demonstrate why Britain’s debt is not a problem, this graph depicts Britain’s level of debt over the last 300 years, and look where we are today.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUiyjGuWAAESW8R.jpg:large
Money is not a problem for our country and it is not like a household, it does not have to borrow its own money or raise it in taxes in order to spend in the economy, that is a Neo-Liberal myth.
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rotzeichen, I think you’re getting mixed up between NHS debt and Britain’s debt.
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Behr: sorry to inform you but the graph relates to the total amount of debt in the country, borrowed to to fund the deficit.
NHS deficits eventually may become part of the total debt, it just depends whether the government spends to eradicate it or adds it to the national debt.
Your silly comment does you no favours.
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rotz: What graph?
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Sorry this one, I thought I had already supplied it,:
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“That’s the national debt. Ed was talking about NHS PFI debt. They are two totally different issues. You definitely got the wrong end of the stick.
However, looking at your graph, you have to admit that the national debt (as % GDP) has been going up substantially since about 2000. Guess what happened around then”!
BEHR: did you read what I said prior to producing this graph.
The graph is the sum total of all the nations debt. That can include the NHS debt as lots of NHS Trust have now got deficits, but it depends on the government as to whether the government includes it or not. It becomes a political choice as to whether the government borrows on public expenditure.
I am aware of the debt rising due to the financial crash, and not as the Tories claim due to public expenditure.
Did you know though, that the government does not have to borrow its own money, that which only it can create, and can spend directly into the economy for anything it wishes to buy, such as an NHS. It is willfully underfunding it on purpose in order to privatise it.
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