1. Ambulance call centre staff are struggling to answer all the calls – so please if you can get help from one of the other routes – please do and let those who really need emergency help get through to the call centre and get the care they need quickly!
2. You should ALWAYS call back and let 999 know if you no longer need an ambulance. If the team attend your location and you don’t need it or have left, then that wasted journey will have taken one of the ambulance crews away from someone who needs help urgently.
3. You will not be seen quicker in the emergency department if you come in by ambulance – if you are not an immediate emergency you will wait to be seen…the Emergency Department is not always the best place for you!
4. In Dec 2021 it took an average of to 9 minutes 13 seconds for an ambulance to respond to a cardiac arrest* (target is 7 minutes) and almost three times the 18 minutes target to respond to an Emergency. Ambulance services are changing – you may get advice over the phone for non-urgent calls and giving CPR for a cardiac arrest will improve chances of survival until the ambulance arrives.
How is the ambulance service changing? Watch this video on Emergency Calls.
5. If you’re sent an ambulance resource you will not always need, or be advised, that a hospital trip is necessary – ambulance crews are skilled and expert clinicians, they’ll advise the best course of treatment for you.
6. Just because you call 999 doesn’t mean you will be sent an ambulance – if your call is not serious or life threatening you may be assessed by a clinician and the best care will be advised for you, or you will be told to make your own way to the nearest Emergency Department or treatment centre.
7. Urgent Care Centres, NHS 111 online and pharmacies are available throughout the weekend and until late in the evenings (or for 111 throughout the night). You should only call 999 with a serious or life threatening emergency – they are loss of consciousness, heart attack, stroke, breathing difficulties – or not breathing at all, severe bleeding that can’t be stopped, persistent and severe chest pain, severe allergic reactions, burns or scolds.
8. Patients who are in a life threatening condition will always be the ambulance service priority as their lives maybe at risk if they don’t get their quickly.
9. Some minor injuries can be treated at home. Attending a first aid class is the best way to learn basic treatments for bleeds, cuts, sprains, asthma and even hands on compressions to help someone unconscious have the best chance of survival (keep the oxygen supply pumping to their brain) before the ambulance crew can get to you. These skills at home can prevent long term medical problems such a scarring from burns and give other patients with more serious conditions the priority they need from the ambulance service. Child Matters run regular Family First Aid classes in Marlow so take a look and learn a skill for life today.
*https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/ambulance-response-times-in-england-an-emergency/
South Central Ambulance Service
