I often do a search for blogs that have linked to Nee Naw, and today I came across this entry by Alison Bryan, whose mother became unconscious and had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance. First of all, I would like to reassure anyone worried that this is not a common occurrence at all. The government target for reaching such a call is eight minutes and we manage that approximately 75% of the time. I have never seen an unconscious patient have to wait longer than fifteen minutes for an ambulance (I almost always stay on line if the patient is unconscious, and believe me, the fifteen minutes can feel like days). Obviously, I work in London, where no-one is more than a couple of miles from an ambulance station, and I can’t speak for the rest of the country, but I would say such experiences are quite rare — not that this is much consolation if it happens to you!
There are two reasons why people sometimes have to wait a long time for an ambulance. The first is simply that we don’t have enough ambulances. Government, please buy us some more! The second is that people insist on calling up for flu, minor injuries, stomach aches and other non emergencies. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again: if you call for an ambulance that you could do without, you WILL be taking that ambulance away from someone who could die without it. Please think careful before you dial. I personally think the ambulance service could do with rethinking its “never say no” policy for ambulance requests and that we endanger a lot more lives by attending all these calls than we would by refusing, but that’s a whole other post.
Further down the entry, Alison mentions that her dad wanted to swear at the call taker (I can’t entirely blame him; if I had been sitting with my unconscious wife for 45 minutes I would want to swear at someone too!) but that she managed to stop him. She then goes on to say:
…This didn’t get very far when he was told to check her breathing (this was already being monitored), when all he wanted was an ambulance.
This rang a very loud bell with me and is an example of the horrible position we are in as dispatchers. Often, callers are pleading with us “just send the ambulance”, and often we would like nothing better than to send an ambulance, but all the ambulances are out, and what can we do? We can’t magic an ambulance out of thin air, we can’t tell the ambulance to chuck the patient on board out on the street and go to this call instead — all we can do is offer advice over the phone. More often than not, callers don’t want to know, even if the instructions we give them will make the difference between the patient surviving the wait or dying in the meantime. Fortunately, Alison knew that her mother’s breathing needed to be monitored, but a lot of people don’t have a clue what to do, and react angrily to being given instructions. It’s almost like they think they are being fobbed off, or that if they follow the instructions I will say “See! You can do it all yourself! Shall I cancel the ambulance now?”
No wonder so many Nee Naw Controllers leave the control room to go and work on ambulances. At least people appreciate what they do then — although of course, you still get those patients who say “You’re just an ambulance driver! I want to see a DOCTOR!” Sometimes you just can’t win…
Fortunately, Alison’s mother is reported to be “on the mend” so there is at least a semi-happy ending to the story!
February 11th, 2006 at 12:05 am
The Beeb is running a month-long season of old public information films on its Web site to celebrate the 60th (I think) anniversary of the Central Office of Information. I’ve suggested that a film on when to phone the emergency services would be a good idea. Time for a campaign perhaps?
February 11th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Funnily enough, the best (the only, in fact) information program I’ve ever seen about calling 999 was on the pre-school children’s program, The Tweenies. I wish they’d do one for adults.
February 11th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Here in Australia, our emergency phone number is 000. This can and apparently does cause problems. We had a big ad campaign not long back to tell us that was our emergency phone number. With so many American and English television shows, it was found that some people were ringing 911 or 999 in an emergency. There have also been rumblings of changing our emergency number, but I doubt it will ever happen. There were reports of some large companies where people send overseas faxes etc. To get out of Australia you need to dial 0015 before you dial the country code you need. In some large organisations where a 0 needs to be dialled to get a phone line, staff don’t realise they don’t need to dial the 0 to get a fax line and therefore dial 0 to get the line, and 00, for the start of 0015. Before they’ve even realised what’s happened, they’ve dialled emergency services. It needs addressing..
February 12th, 2006 at 4:33 am
8 minutes is a ridiculous target in rural areas. Allison suggests sending the fire brigade out in the interim like they do here in the US. That works here in the US because we have more fire services (houses are all wood-built, fires are nmore common and more deadly, we pay big taxes for an efficient service) The reason the fire crew come out first is because they are paid for by taxes. All ambulance services are private. The fire crews have emergency first aid training and can “advise” the patient as to whether their insurance will cover an ambulance. (Cynic, moi?
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In the UK, it might be better to train local police to be emergency first aid responders.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Angie said: Here in Australia … With so many American and English television shows, it was found that some people were ringing 911 or 999
I get the same thing with my students. Admittedly some of them have only been in Australia for a few months but it seems quite barmy to me that they’d rely on some TV fiction when they already know about the phone book.
February 13th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
A call like this is one of the worst to be on. The family are always understandably stressed when the ambulance takes any lenght of time to arrive. My worst one was a CPR job that took the crew 40mins to get to. To their credit, the family were totaly amazing. One of our golden rules is never to say that the ambulance is on the way (it could be stood down for another call, could crash….etc) but due to the circumstances and the crew being so far we were able to tell them where the ambulance was coming from and give them updates as to how long it would be. The house was way way out on a wee island and that really was the closest crew we had to attend. That was the longest 40 mins of my life. Needless to say, the pt did not make it, but i would like to think that at least the family felt that they had done all they could to help. They kept the CPR going for the whole time of the call.
The area we cover is, like London, very busy. I know for a fact, like any other emergency service worker, that while we are very short on ambulances, and dont have enough of them to match the jobs we get, there are an abundance of fire engines sitting around with bored firemen waiting for a job. Hopefuly soon the government will realise there is an untapped resource here!
February 14th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
It definitely makes a difference in response times here in the US. I work in the San Francisco bay area in California, which is pretty busy but also quite urban, with some rural spots in the geographical area. Local municipality fire departments are generally the first to arrive on-scene, with the ambulance service about 2-3 minutes behind. Fire engines always have 4 firemen (& women) responding, with at least one of them a fire paramedic and a couple of them as EMTs. It does help in keeping the local fire departments busy, particularly in San Francisco, which has a fire station for every square mile of the city (sometimes more than one)… serious fires aren’t as common anymore due to building materials & codes, as well as extremely close coverage.
February 15th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Often, callers are pleading with us “just send the ambulance”, and often we would like nothing better than to send an ambulance, but all the ambulances are out, and what can we do? We can’t magic an ambulance out of thin air, we can’t tell the ambulance to chuck the patient on board out on the street and go to this call instead — all we can do is offer advice over the phone. More often than not, callers don’t want to know, even if the instructions we give them will make the difference between the patient surviving the wait or dying in the meantime. Fortunately, Alison knew that her mother’s breathing needed to be monitored, but a lot of people don’t have a clue what to do, and react angrily to being given instructions. It’s almost like they think they are being fobbed off, or that if they follow the instructions I will say “See! You can do it all yourself! Shall I cancel the ambulance now?”
Does the script you follow not take ANY account of these perceptions, entirely understandable, given the public’s lack of knowledge of ambulance services??
Do you not get the opportunity to say that all the ambulances are out right now and you can’t magick one out of thin air but that they will get sent one just as soon as one becomes available? Do you not get the chance to explain (briefly!) that these are interim instructions that could make all the difference for when the ambulance arrives?
February 15th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
There’s nothing scripted, but this is one thing you are allowed to add in yourself. It doesn’t make any difference, though. The conversation just goes round in circles: “Send an ambulance!” “I’m afraid there isn’t one available, but I can stay on line and tell you want to do until there is” “Just send an ambulance!” “There isn’t an ambulance!” “SEND THE AMBULANCE!”
Even if you come out with those forbidden words “the ambulance is on its way” (which I must admit I do sometimes), things aren’t much better. It goes “The ambulance is on its way, but I need you to do this now” “Make it hurry up” “It’s coming on blue lights and sirens, but we still need to do this now” “Make it come FASTER!” “I can’t” “I’M GOING TO SUE!!!!” etc
This job can be extremely frustrating!
September 18th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
I work for reDirect and we have to ask ABC questions on all 3rd party calls. You explain “I have to ask 5 routine questions we ask on all calls, this is to rule out any emergencies. They may not appear relevant to you but please answer yes or no” Then on every single frigging question you get the answer “No, I told you, she’s just got toothache, why do I have to answer this?” Makes me very annoyed, especially the question looking for petechial rashes, when ’smart’ callers will say “Noooo, it’s NOT meningitis, DUUUUH” Hate it. Or people who call regarding a non-blanching rash who just scream “STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS SHE’S DYYYYYIIIING” when actually it’s a blotchy heat rash. Ack.