NHS Sending Police Officers to Heart Attack Callouts Due to High Demand and Paramedic Shortages
Police officers in England and Wales are spending up to a third of their time on non-policing matters, including assisting heart attack patients due to high demand and an overstretched ambulance service. MailOnline has more.
Officers in armed response vehicles, who are trained in first aid and defibrillators, are being pulled away from tackling crime to [attend] mental health crises and transport cardiac arrest patients to A&E.
[Health Secretary Steve] Barclay called for bold decisions on staffing to be made now, before Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss are appointed as Prime Minister next month, or it will be “too late” to save struggling hospitals.
The NHS crisis has seen the backlog for routine hospital treatment soar to a record 6.6 million and A&E performance plunge to a record low – with more than 700,000 Britons waiting more than 12 hours so far this year. There have also been record ambulance response and handover waits.
Mr Barclay, 50, replaced Sajid Javid who quit last month after questioning the Prime Minister’s integrity and suggesting the Government was no longer “competent” following a string of scandals and controversies.
In his first interview since taking the job, he set out the struggles facing the health service.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “We have very real challenges coming down the track in the autumn and winter, and as far as I’m concerned there needs to be a real sprint within Whitehall, and particularly in the Department of Health, to get ready for September. Part of my role is to prepare for reasonable worst case scenarios. Obviously those pressures can come in different forms. It might be you get a bad flu, it may be Covid rates are higher than we would expect or like. There’s an urgency of now to prepare, particularly in areas where there’s a long lead time. The decisions need to happen now, not wait until the autumn – by which time those lead times would put the resolution at too late a stage.”
Highlighting the extent of the challenges facing the health service, Andy Cooke, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, today warned that police were forced to respond to ambulance callers.
He told the Independent: “The ambulance service contacted the police to say ‘we’ve got this heart patient and we haven’t got anyone to send’. Being first, last and only resort, the police will go. It’s right that they did go but that hides the problems we’ve got in the rest of the system.”
One officer, speaking anonymously, told the newspaper his force was regularly responding to paramedic callers.
Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney, the national lead for local policing, warned officers are being forced to sacrifice fighting crime and make decisions “they are not best placed to make”.
The police “should not be the service of first resort in these situations”, she said.
What the newspaper report doesn’t address is what lies behind the surge in demand for the NHS, and in particular for emergency callouts for heart complaints, which is the main category that is significantly elevated.
Why are so many people having serious heart problems at the moment? There are three main suspects (which are not mutually exclusive): a consequence of the lockdowns, an impact of COVID-19, and an adverse effect of the vaccines.
Despite over 11,000 excess deaths in England and Wales in the last three months, many of them due to cardiovascular causes, the Government has not given any indication it is interested in finding out the answer to this question.
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Does anyone know how much it costs to get a dinghy out of the UK?
Despite over 11,000 excess deaths in England and Wales in the last three months, many of them due to cardiovascular causes, the Government has not given any indication it is interested in finding out the answer to this question.
Keep pressing this DS. Hopefully others will join in soon. This tragedy must absolutely not be swept away and forgotten. If it’s the stab, then it’s vital that this is recognised, and steps taken to ensure that nothing like this can ever happen again. And those responsible held to account.
Heaven only knows what this winter might bring.
I haven’t heard of anybody collapsing at football matches for a while, whether supporters or players, but maybe that’s because its just considered the norm now and not worth mentioning. We were at a fairground yesterday and I was wondering to myself, as I watched ( and participated in! ) people being flung into the air and spun around at warp speeds whilst upside down, if people can have a cardiac event if their team scores then how on earth will people fare with the adrenaline rush on some of these rides. There was a tent full of first aiders but they were all just sat around chatting or dealing with wasp stings. No de-fib action that I was aware of but I was only there a couple hours.
I think I’ve watched too many movies such as Final Destination because I was watching my kid on a ride and wondering how quickly you could lower swings that are 60m in the air if somebody got into difficulties…not that I’ve a penchant for being morbid or anything but in these Covid jab times you have to expect the unexpected.
The Everton game at the weekend had to be stopped temporarily due to an ‘incident in the crowd’ which I understand was of a medical nature.
I hope there’s astute people keeping eyes on the matches and making note of these medical incidents where people collapse or are taken ill with chest pains. This needs to be monitored and never allowed to just become par for the course, “nothing out of the ordinary to see here. Move along” type attitude. I know Matt Le Tissier has been highlighting this but people recording it on their blogs is also pretty handy so we can keep tabs and compare with similar incidents from years gone by.
The people-collapsing-at-sporting-events was a massive harbinger of what was coming. But in the end such stories -important though they are – are essentially anecdotal.
The excess deaths figures are hard data. In the end, that is what will make increasing numbers of people wake up, and what will skewer the guilty ones.
I will offer one certainty for this winter – it will bring misery for millions.
As intended.
Is this talking about heart attack or cardiac arrest? The former may lead to the latter, but the latter doesn’t need to be the result of the former.
A heart attack is the reduction or cessation of blood to the heart itself caused by a blockage in the coronary arteries either a clot or the buildup of plaques.
Cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly stops beating, usually because of an arrhythmia, but can be due to tamponade. CPR plus Early defibrillation is essential.
Heart attack, unstable angina or chest pain are category 2 responses
Cardiac or respiratory arrest are category 1 responses.
Thanks John.
I appreciate the clarification. I (incorrectly) use these terms interchangeably even though I know they aren’t the same thing
Please note that take aways from the linked report is cardiac and respiratory arrest are similar to baseline. Chest pain is below baseline. Difficulty in breathing is below baseline. Hot and cold
Also note that it is received calls for respiratory arrest OR cardiac arrest. This is probably from the ambulance control triage to determine category of response. Which would be category 1.
For adults cardiac arrest precedes respiratory arrest. Adults can go into respiratory arrest without cardiac arrest.
In young children respiratory arrest precedes cardiac arrest and are unlikely to be in respiratory arrest only.
Another graph that needs to be included is the one covering heat on page 9, there’s a significant spike from a few weeks ago. Heat can precipitate cardiac problems.
They will blame the increase in cardiac events on the heat ( ergo climate change ), monkeybollox or even Putin before they look at the jabs as being a possible causal factor.
Incidentally, not being in the UK any longer and therefore out of the loop, why is there a shortage of paramedics over there? Is this a recent thing or, similar to the nurse shortage, has it been a problem for years? Or is it just a case of demand outstripping supply due to the significant increase in heart issues we’re witnessing in recent months?
Loss of staff due to stab issues…. lot of NHS staff sickness & some staff who refused the stab left. NHS morale is very low. An awful lot of pressure is put on the coal face staff to do an awful lot more with an awful lot less by the management. It has always been thus but has been getting worse as the politicisation of management has increased & managers have very limited if any experience of working the coal face of clinical care.
Plus the first savings made are by culling ‘admin’ staff. Those ‘admin’ staff tend to be the clinical support admin, who enable clinicians to see patients rather than spend hours on admin tasks.
Heat is more likely to precipitate a cardiac event, but cold is the bigger killer. What we’re experiencing is an anomalous heat wave that is nothing to do with global warming. A lot of paramedics left the NHS ambulance trusts and either went to private paramedic companies, who are contracted to the NHS trusts, or several that I knew left to become advanced clinical practitioners either in urgent care centres or GP surgeries where they could increase their salary to around £50,000 pa compared with 35000 as a band 6/7 paramedic.
It would be interesting to know if similarly ‘vaccinated’ countries are having the same problem with excessive amounts of heart problems clogging up their emergency services and emergency departments. I have a suspicion that, even if they are, they are probably coping better than we are because our ambulances/paramedics have always seemed to be just on the verge on not coping for years, so it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge. It’s the same shout every winter (for decades!) with queues of ambulances outside hospitals as they say they are at breaking point. You would think it would be clear to any health minister that we have needed many more ambulances/paramedics for years and they would remedy the situation, but no. Money can be spent like water on other rubbish, but when the ambulance system fails we are told to keep away from hospitals to stop them from being overloaded!
Our main county hospital is hell on earth, and always has been. I received far better and more caring emergency treatment in a small Indian hospital that I have ever received locally.
Our main county hospital is hell on earth, and always has been.
I wouldn’t claim that quality as being exclusive to your own county hospital – from what I can glean they’re all hell holes.
Our local: well I reckon if you took a fully healthy person and put them in there for two weeks they’d either be stark raving mad or knocking on Heaven’s Door.
Australia is in the same boat. Our hospitals are seeing “unprecedented” demand, and 7 times since the start of the year the ambulance service has had to call a code red due to long wait times and lack of available ambulances. We’ve had ambulances ramped with patients in the back and we’ve also had hospitals on bed block which is when an ambulance can’t leave the hospital because the patient is still using their stretcher and the hospital doesn’t have a proper bed to transfer them to. Of course, experts and public health bureaucrats are ‘baffled’
So, basically, the health minister is of the opinion that everything’s fine with the NHS right now but that Something Really Bad[tm] might or will happen in autumn due to respiratory diseases and that he urgently needs to start preparing for that. In other words, he’s too busy to consider starting to do something because of something else which might happen 2 – 3 months from now to care about anything which is happening at the moment. Presumably, one could put an empty wheely bin in his office instead of him and that would achieve about the same results in a much cheaper way.
Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney, the national lead for local policing, warned officers are being forced to sacrifice fighting crime and make decisions “they are not best placed to make”.
Police fighting crime eh?
That’s worth the lead on News at Ten.
Blimey Charlie. 😀
Steve Barclay flagging September – it’s three weeks away Steve.
Problems in Autumn and Winter and no plans made? You are in the wrong job Barclay lad.
And the only reasons for increasing cardiovascular problems are opening an energy bill and global warming.
FFS!
He could as well have said I’m a placeholder and will be out of office before the shit hits the fan. And realistically, that’s all that he is. He could nevertheless do something (or at least try to do something). Chances are that overlong A&E waiting times are at least partially due to mandatory Sars-CoV2 testing before admission. That could be scrapped which would immediately improve things.
Agree RW.
Heart attacks, strokes, blood clots all on the rise. A big thank you to the clot shots. I am sorry for all those who took them because “they wanted to travel”. The data is out and these experimental biologicals are proving to be a disaster. Excess mortality and severe adverse events post vaxx skyrocketing. Cdc VAERS. No anyone who was perfectly healthy prevaxx, and are know diagnosed with atrial fib, heart abnormalities, decreased red blood cells, syncope?
For months, more than six, Wales Ambulance in the Swansea Bay NHS health region has been using Advanced Paramedics to man the GP emergency service in Hospitals. Another example of our deteriorating GP Service here in Swansea. Stop the emergency appointments only at GP Surgeries and return to the old system. How can a doctor diagnose anything without consulting the patient face to face? Receptionists do not have the medical qualifications to triage patients by phone. What are we paying NHI for if we do not receive the basics of medical primary care at the point of need?