Berberis Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 (edited) Its sickening to hear about the woman who was attacked in London recently and the result being she lost her baby at 32 weeks. Personally I question the charge of child destruction and think these people should be charged with Murder, but this is not my point. Upon reading the BBC news article, I note that the Ambulance service failed to turn up. The poor woman was left for over an hour before the police gave up and took her to a hospital. Should the ambulance service face consequences as this amount of time could have impacted the outcome of the situation, namely the baby could have possibly survived. Mistakes happen, but as they where called a number of times and no ambulance turned up, have they failed in their duty of care to the public? It riles me when public services put their hands up and say "whoops we made a mistake" and are never force to face the consequences. Ref: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-33177590 Edited June 18, 2015 by Berberis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timeh Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 What consequences should they face? Yes its tragic but dont lose focus on why the women needed an ambulance in the first place. Her baby was apparently targeted in this attack by some worthless scum and it was murdered whilst still inside her. Sick cant even come close to how i feel about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzijlstra Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I'd like a link, but no, the ambulance service does not face consequences. My dad has been a paramedic for over 30 years, in all that time he has exceeded the government target for arrival time on a regular basis. The reason is simple: Money. You can't plan emergencies, they happen and you have to respond. There are times you get everything happening at the same time and there is not a lot you can do. If you want a situation where this does not happen you need extreme slack in the system, it is not affordable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berberis Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 I'd like a link, but no, the ambulance service does not face consequences. My dad has been a paramedic for over 30 years, in all that time he has exceeded the government target for arrival time on a regular basis. The reason is simple: Money. You can't plan emergencies, they happen and you have to respond. There are times you get everything happening at the same time and there is not a lot you can do. If you want a situation where this does not happen you need extreme slack in the system, it is not affordable. Link added to my first post. I understand if they were too stretched at the time and there as some more heinous issues unfolding, but the call to 999 was assessed as a lower a priority. This implies that if this had not happened they would have attended, thus they made a mistake that could have impacted the outcome and saved a life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L00b Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I'd like a link, but no, the ambulance service does not face consequences. My dad has been a paramedic for over 30 years, in all that time he has exceeded the government target for arrival time on a regular basis. The reason is simple: Money. You can't plan emergencies, they happen and you have to respond. There are times you get everything happening at the same time and there is not a lot you can do. If you want a situation where this does not happen you need extreme slack in the system, it is not affordable. We don't yet know whether the ambulance service failed to arrive any sooner due to under-capacity (your point, which is fair enough) or systemic and/or human error (wherein blame may be laid -if that's important to anyone- and, importantly, remedial action should be taken). Or both indeed (in which case blame/remedial action still applies). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I wonder what the criteria for the incident to be classed as a lower priority is. Would they have turned up eventually?....or just not bother?....70mins seems a bit excessive to me. If it had been in some isolated village in the back of beyond, I could have maybe understood the delay....But not in London... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sgtkate Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Its sickening to hear about the woman who was attacked in London recently and the result being she lost her baby at 32 weeks. Personally I question the charge of child destruction and think these people should be charged with Murder, but this is not my point. I totally understand where you are coming from, but calling it murder of the unborn child would set a highly dangerous precedent. Nothing stopping the tariff they are given, if/when found guilty, being equal to that of murder though. For your main point, it's a hard one. There must have been a reason the operator didn't feel the call required an immediate ambulance, perhaps the person who phoned didn't explain how serious the situation was? Also it's unfair to say that the ambulance service gets away with errors. I would imagine there will be an internal review and disciplinary taken internal. The fact it's not in the papers does not mean it didn't happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey104 Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 I wonder what the criteria for the incident to be classed as a lower priority is. Would they have turned up eventually?....or just not bother?....70mins seems a bit excessive to me. If it had been in some isolated village in the back of beyond, I could have maybe understood the delay....But not in London... The problem is actually exacerbated in a large city because there are more people using this service and for minor ailments where a taxi would be more appropriate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fogey Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 Where does it say that multiple calls were made? The link only refers to the original call and the police cancelling. The original call could have been extremely lacking in detail or give an extremely incorrect set of facts. Having said all that, - 70 minutes is far too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berberis Posted June 18, 2015 Author Share Posted June 18, 2015 Where does it say that multiple calls were made? The link only refers to the original call and the police cancelling. The original call could have been extremely lacking in detail or give an extremely incorrect set of facts. Having said all that, - 70 minutes is far too long. The London Ambulance Service issued an apology for an ambulance not reaching her and said the first 999 call, made by a member of the public, had been assessed as a "lower priority call". That implies there was more than one call made to them about the incident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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