Massive Failiure By The NW Ambulance Service

Originally Posted by BBC News

A man was left lying unconscious in a street in Liverpool for more than an hour after two different teams of paramedics failed to turn up.

Ben Cree, 59, collapsed as he was walking to buy a paper along North Sudley Road in Aigburth on Thursday.

One ambulance on its way was diverted to a more serious, life-threatening call, and another broke down.

The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) said it was "a truly regrettable incident."

A trust statement said: "Calls are categorised in order of patient need and on Thursday 7 June, we received a call for an incident that was initially graded as an amber call - serious but not life threatening.

It seems as though this sort of thing is becoming more and more common in the NHS nowadays, and its quite worrying.

BBC News Report

It is worrying, but shit happens.

The second ambulance broke down, an unexpected fault.

If I were unconcious, and my injuries weren't life threatening, I'd prefer the ambulance to go to a more serious incident.

An hour is still far too long for an incident rated as "serious" though Joe. 8 minutes is the target for all emergencies, and this thing is starting to happen more and more often.

Also, its amazing how quickly and easily an incident rated as "serious" can turn into one rated as "life threatening". If someone has a bad enough epeileptic fit that an ambulance is requested for instance are automatically rated as "serious" from the off, but can quite easily become fatal if an ambulance doesnt respond quick enough.

I agree that the life threatening one should take priority, but an hour is just far too long imho, under 40 minutes should have been the target in that situation.

A LOT of the delay's are caused by ambulances being forced to wait outside hospitals with patients after booking them in, for upto 3 hours at busy times, when really the patient should be in the hospital and the ambulance should be freed to respond to other emergencies asap.