Paramedics are ‘leaving in droves’ as ambulance callouts almost double – Frontline NHS workers are under pressure as the number of emergency calls in England rises 10 times faster than the number of staff

24 comments

  2. My mate graduated to be paramedic right before COVID hit. We’ve seen him once in the last two years, he’s lost an immense amount of weight and grey hairs are everywhere (he’s in his early 30s).

    Needless to say we don’t expect him to be in the profession for much longer.

  3. My son’s a paramedic, in a rural area, his main problem is that ambulances are queuing up for hours outside hospitals waiting to be offloaded, with all the stress that causes.

    Having been in a major accident (broken femur), I can tell when you hear the sirens in the distance and the ambulance arrives, that is one of the most wonderful sights there is. You can finally stop screaming for help. This was 50 years ago, but I still remember it to this day

    Waiting in the ambulance for hours would certainly make me start up screaming again. I’m sure they triage, but it’s not good when A&E are at 100% capacity at 100% of the time.

    EDIT: Being unable to go to the doctor for simple things easily cured, leads to A&E being full of people who should be at their local doctors, but blaming them for doing this misses the point, we need more GPs which solves the problem, not a strong talking to.

  4. All by design of the Tories. Collapse the NHS and then shove a US style healthcare down oun throats.

    You think you can’t get medical attention now? Wait until you have to pay cash to see a GP, assuming you can’t afford the hundreds a month in insurance premiums which won’t cover the entire cost anyways.

    We get what we vote for!

  7. We have GPs leaving, doctors an nurses in hospitals leaving and now paramedics doing the same. The NHS will still stand but only as staff put in a ton of extra effort to just try and keep it from collapsing, until those remaining also burn out and leave to save their sanity. Recruitment from overseas is going to step up even more but the root of the problem will never be addressed.

  8. It seems they probably need to hire contractors and subcontractors to fill the gap. Is that right?

  10. We all remember that Boris’s lot promised that Brexit would mean £350M extra a week to the NHS, they even wrote it on the side of a bus.
    It’s time for this Worzel Gummidge Gov’t to put down the bottle and resign given the UK’s dire economic forecast.

  13. It’s ok do not worry the Tory Cabinet will bring in agency Labour. We do not need trained workers just agency cheap any bodies.

  16. Privatisation will be the answer from those in power, defund it until it’s useless and people are angry, and they will ask for it.

  17. We regularly wait 3 hours plus for an ambulance at an emergency, currently. It won’t get better unless the government stop trying to sell of chunks of the NHS.

  19. I think it’s a profession I would enjoy and I considered going for it a few years back as I knew people doing it (they have all since left lol) but it’s surely not worth it.

    Half the people your seeing are the same smackheads which should be left to die then another big chunk are morons going out and self inflicting injuries caused by excessive drinking then the other big chunk are the same few elderly people who go to the hospital twice a week for a chat.

    Commendable if you do it and stick at it because there are people everyday who you save but the amount of shit you put up with from the aforementioned people is insane.

  20. I know someone who was a paramedic. He left a few years ago, before covid.
    He’d say that more often than not, they’d “told” to do over time. He’d do 14-16 hour shifts most days (not sure medical procedures and tiredness go well together).
    They would get a 30 minute lunch break. So, if their base told them they had to take their break, that 30 minutes would start then. God forbid you’d left your food in the HQ because travelling back to get it, would be included in your break I.e. a 27 minute drive back, would result in 3 minutes to eat it. (If you ever see a paramedic in the queue, might be an idea to let them go first).
    He got shouted at once, because he’d parked up to perform CPR on a patient and had blocked the road so cars couldn’t get passed. Even got asked if he could move the ambulance, whilst pumping the persons chest….

    Abused by junkies who they’ve just saved from overdosing. Spat at. Punched. Scratched.

    Had stones and rocks thrown at the ambulance, by shitty little cunts in estates.

    They deserve a hell of a lot more love and appreciation than they get. They don’t do that job for money, but because they want to help people.

  21. I posted this in another similar thread recently;

    Paramedic with a long career in a senior NHS role here. The ambulance services are absolutely on their knees. The steady decline has been in progress for years. We have embraced new ways of working and ‘efficiency’, and are a lean and focused organisation these days, but still we can’t keep up with the ever rising demand. Delays at hospitals are killing our ability to respond to patients, and yes, patients die every day waiting for ambulances. That’s not an exaggeration, every single day.

    Mind you, the collapse has been foretold many times before, and we somehow make it work. The system destroys staff in order to achieve it however. The pressure is relentless, and the average ambulance career for a new paramedic is just a few short years now, before they burn out and fade away.

    To replace them the universities now churn out new paramedics like puppy farms. The focus is on getting as many through as possible, with less regard to quality or suitability. All to feed the relentless NHS machine.

    It’s not sustainable long term. The future is daunting. Hang on tight everyone!

  22. I’ve a load of respect for the paramedics, and appreciate they’re under a ton of pressure (but I guess it’s the same for all healthcare workers)

    Recently, I had to call 111 for my daughter, they suggested maybe we’ll need an ambulance.

    The ambulance crew called later and said it’ll be 4h wait minimum before they can get to me. I laughed and asked them what should I do?

    They then managed to get my daughter a GP appointment! I struggled to get through to my GP’s phone line in the morning but the crew managed to get an appointment for me.

    Crazy times.

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