Posted on 02/17/2008 4:48:09 PM PST by John Jorsett
Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.
Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.
The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.
Doctors warned last night that the practice of "patient-stacking" was putting patients' health at risk.
Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that last year 43,576 patients waited longer than one hour before being let into emergency units.
Only seven out of 11 ambulance trusts responded to the survey, so the true figure could be far higher.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb is writing to health secretary Alan Johnson to demand an urgent investigation into the practice.
"This is evidence of shocking systematic failure in our emergency services," he said.
Labour brought in the four-hour A&E target to end the scandal of patients waiting for days in casualty or being kept on trolleys in corridors.
But a shortage of out-of-hours GP care, after thousands of doctors opted out of treating patients outside working hours under lucrative new contracts, means more and more are going to casualty units, putting them under greater pressure.
Dr Jonathan Fielden of the British Medical Association said: "The vast majority of patients coming into hospital by ambulance are in critical need of care in hospital and therefore delay can worsen their outcome."
Sam Oestreicher of Unison, which represents most ambulance workers, said: "Ambulances should not be used as mobile waiting rooms. They should be freed to do their job.
"These figures show there's a terrible-and colossal waste of ambulance resources."
Conservative health spokesman Mike Penning said: "Not admitting people to hospital but stacking patients in car parks beggars belief in the 21st century."
However the Department of Health said the statistics did not reflect time spent by patients in the ambulance before being admitted to accident and emergency.
"They measure the time taken to turn around an ambulance for its next emergency, including cleaning and restocking the ambulance," said a spokesman.
"These figures must be seen in the context of the 4.3million patient journeys undertaken by emergency vehicles in 2006/07."
Here comes Hillary care, here comes Hillary care, right down socialist lane!!
Why are they worried about resources? I thought it was free.
It's like the sentencing guidelines for powder cocaine and solid cocaine (crack) ~ they were different. The criminal lawyer's lobby demanded parity thinking they penalty for crack would be reduced. Somehow they forgot the option of increasing the penalty for powder.
Guess they'd been using too much themselves.
Enough of that, it's pretty obvious the guys running NHS in the UK are sociopaths!
Oh my. I've been in a couple of accidents, one bad...I would likely have bled to death in 4 hours...socialized medicine is such a *good* idea...
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Are undertakers socialized in the UK as well? If not I smell a huge employment opportunity!
Oh, this is so simple. Just put those capitalist pig doctors in chains and force them to treat the patients for free.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
I’ll keep this in mind the next time I’m cursing United for pulling out of the gate at Denver, backing up twenty feet, then coming to a stop and sitting there while they dribble out ever more dubious “we’re almost ready to go” taunts for two hours.
Classic way for bureaucrats to solve a problem. Actually kind of funny, in a sick way.
And there are people in this USA that WANT national health care.
They are either completely stupid, or can’t comprehend - maybe they can’t read either.
Years ago, I worked for a governmental welfare agency and the applications per policy had to be completed within 30 days.
If the 30 days arrived, any which weren’t done were just rejected and restamped on the computer as new applications for a new 30 day period.
Made the bosses look good, as there were never outdated applications on file.
England’s NHS is definitely following standard procedure.
What we would have too if we adopt sociohealth.
Something to look forward to.
I’m an EMT. We’re very limited as to how much care we can give in an ambulance. Had an MV accident victim today who was confused, going cold, dropping BP - Brit EMTs are supposed to keep her stable with O2 for five hours? Or the not-so-sick, could-have-dealt-with-the-flu-themselves-at-home patient - Brit EMTs are going to be baby-sitting half a shift with one patient?
To the wall with these bureaucrats.
Oh yeah, cleaning, re-stocking and turn around time is minimal, Mr. Department of Health spokesman. Very often zero, en route.
I had a payment dispute with a doctor’s office, actually a large group closer in size to a small hospital.
As most of us know, collection agencies aren’t interested in taking on $73 debts that are 4 years old. The med group accounting office has an interesting way of getting around that, as I discovered. They enter charges and payments as a continuously running total. Thus, no matter how old the [so called] unpaid bill is, on paper it is never very old. And the collection agency is then willing to take it on.
They said I never paid for my last visit to this Dr. before I moved out of state. I said yeah, I did. Shows right here I made my co-payment and that the insurance co. paid their contracted amount. They said no, we applied your co-payment to a 3 year old bill, so you really didn’t pay your co-payment so we turned you over to collection.
Very strange story. Collection agency said pay $172 or we put a mark on your credit. I requested proof of debt directly from the Dr office & they sent me a statement claiming I owed $73. Weird. So, I saved all of this paper trail and sent a UPS letter to collection people informing them that if they marked my credit I would turn this over to the FTC and the FL state attorney general. They are either very incompetent or they are trying to shake me down.
Socialized medicine Bump!
If you like government housing your are going to love government medicine.
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