Rural services our way are just about zero. The local TV 2 days ago said they were removing 2/3rds of Avon and Somerset rural crime investigation police officers ( all 6 of them..) to other dutys until at least November due to a lack of officers for other areas. Four weeks ago our neighbours called the police to report a possible entry to a property in our Hamlet, the police call centre said they were too busy and transferred them to another Somerset call centre, with same issue, who then transferred them to a Midlands call centre!!. They responded with what can we do, suggest you send Avon and Somerset an email and they then gave our neighbour the email address.. No one responded in the end..
Same neighbour a week later fell over just around 2200 hrs, landed badly on a stone floor. They called me as I had trauma training, looked like a broken pelvis, so called 999 and made patient as comfortable as possible. The response was maybe a 7 hr wait as no ambulances available in our area. 2 hrs later called 999 again, still no ambulances and informed actually none free in the West country as they were all at hospitals trying to discharge their patients to the hospitals.. So 5 hrs after initial call the ambulance rocks up.. not happy....
Rant over...
I see nothing has changed from 2 years ago. When visiting Cornwall my wife fell while walking on a country road and broke her hip, she was lying in the road in a good deal of pain and couldn't move. Passing cars stopped to help and protect her in the road, I called 999 and was told it could be up to 6 hours before an ambulance could get to us as it was not life threatening, I said if she gets hit by a car that would be life threatening, no change. With the help of 4 other people and a lady Angel who said she would drive us to the hospital we managed to get my wife into the car, she was in so much pain. On arrival at the hospital I counted 16 ambulances waiting with the crews to offload patients, one crew helped get my wife out of the car and into a wheelchair then told me to take her into the hospital otherwise they would be responsible. It took another hour before she was seen and no one would give her any pain relief, as soon as the trauma nurse saw her she was whisked off, took another 5 hours before she was admitted to a ward. Once our insurance company in the US got in contact with the hospital (took them 6 hours because no one at the hospital would deal with them) things suddenly changed and the hospital communicated with me and my wife. A lady in the bed next to my wife with a badly broken leg had been waiting in the ambulance in the car park for over 18 hours before being admitted. The other week here in our town (which is in the mountains and not near the hospital) a roofer fell off a roof and broke his back the paramedics were there in 3 minutes and the air ambulance arrived 15 minutes later to take him to the hospital, of course we pay for the service.
