I work for the London Ambulance Service (LAS) and i am ashamed to wear the uniform last night a poor elederly man was left suffering on the floor for 1hr 45 mins. He had a fractured hip and was left in a great deal of pain while i am busy dealing with some idiot who has just had an argument with her husband and is faking a coma for sympathy. Stop sending on us on inappropriate calls people are dying suffering because of it.

Mr. Angry , London,

I work at ambulance control. Where as i can completely understand your behaviour and dissapointment with the lack of service you recived. I am also compelled to say that rather then try and completely place the vlame on the ambulance service, why not the fellow general public, who make hoax calls, calls that are not needed as it doesnt occur to then that an ambulance is not a big yellow taxi!
It is not as though EMT's and paramedics or the people at control just sit there twiddling there thumbs and not bothering, it is the busiest ambulance service in the world for a reason, and instead of constant criticism i think that the stories of heroism that face crews every day should be recognised also.
I got told by a caller that we were all a bunch of "monkeys", ok fair enough, you wont want monkeys treating you then??
I can honestly understand your situation and it is very frustrating when we have a call like yours with nothing to send and we GENUINLEY ARE SORRY!!!

EMD, Kingston,

As a serving Firefighter i have to say that your story, unfortunately, does not shcok me. I work in an area where the fire brigades union and its members have fought a long and difficult battle to prevent action such as this (i.e. the despatch of a fire appliance and crew to provide emergency medical care when an ambulance is delayed). I am not against the principle that the fire service has the infrastructure to assist. I do, however, have grave concerns over the potential for the fire service to become a replacement for another, essential, service. More sinister is the fact that under the scheme proposed locally , known as a co-responding scheme, the ambulance service were able to state that THEY had attended within the required response times whenever a fire appliance performed such a duty on their behalf. The elderly lady that you describe deserve better. We all do.

Andy Pearce, Nottm, England

I'm a Brit who moved to the US in '93 and every time I visit the UK I'm reminded ever more forcefully of why I left. The congested roads, high taxes, expensive everything, the small houses, I can cope with. When I left, the one thing I could point to with pride was the NHS. The last straw for me was during our last visit to the UK in 2006. We passed a person who had been knocked down and was lying in the road, badly injured. The police had arrived we were told an ambulance had been called. We drove on and passed the accident again 20 mins later. The victim was still there, still waiting. We were appalled. In the US, the national mandate is a sub 3 minute response time to a 911 call and sub 30 minutes to an ER. Every emergency responder is a trained and equipped paramedic. Our small town of less than 10,000 people has a minimum of 6 ambulances and 12 paramedics available at all times. And we are a small, lower middle class town. What is happened in the UK and to the NHS?

Sam, Antioch, IL, USA

Pauline, talk to someone about having a keysafe fitted. This is a secure metal box with a 6 digit combination lock fitted to the wall outside your house and the combination can be passed to ambulance crews if needed by LifeLine etc. I work for the ambulance service and see keysafes every day.

John Robertson, West Midlands, UK

As a counter-balance to the story yesterday, about a year ago in South-West London at 10.00 pm my daughter started to give birth in her hall (yes, she had cut it a bit fine). Her husband called the emergency services. The lady at the ambulance service insisted that she would stay on the phone until the ambulance came, and she talked my daughter through the birth. Two ambulances arrived within 4 minutes (by which time little Finn was out). Two ambulances were sent automatically in case mother and baby had to go to separate hospitals. One ambulance left once the crew had established that all was well. The second crew stayed for 40 minutes to deal with the afterbirth etc, and only took my daughter to hospital as they could not find a community midwife at that time of night.

So the service does work well, at least sometimes.

Patrick, Winchester, UK

No doubt you accurately described your experiences but your sweeping condemnation of the emergency services, the National Health Service and Blair's Britain is unfounded and borders on the hysterical.

My experience of the first two of these i.e. the emergency services and the NHS is a complete opposite of yours. Faced with a life threatening illness when summoned the paramedic arrived at my North London home in 4 to 5 minutes closely followed by an ambulance. The diagnosis and treatment given on the spot was excellent and I was quickly conveyed to the Whittington Hospital where a thorough examination was carried out. I was subsequently discharged.

We must be living in parallel worlds where those 'anti Blair zealots' misconstrue every situation and the vast majority of us are benefiting from the £92 billion investment in the NHS !

Geoff , Muswell Hill, London, England

I work for the ambulance service, suffice to say the crews were probably tied up making out of hours gp appt for a person with tooth ache because they cant be bothered to hold on the out of hours service let alone wait till the next day, or they were picking up a drunk teenager because their parents were to irresponsible to deal with the problem themselves, or they were going to our ever increasing needy regulars who are lonely and want attention, or they were picking up a resident off the floor in a nursing home where the staff have a no lifting policy,this is the bulk of the work ambulances do now, but the managers dont mind because its all none life threatening which means weve got either 18mins or upto an hr to get there to reach the targets and get more cash...
theres no money in emergency calls any more, tony blair made sure of that when he set the 8min unachievable target...

Realism, sherborne,

I always thought that "could scarce forbear" meant 'could hardly hold back', but then again, I'm not of the generation that was forced to memorise anything (not even grammar, since it stifles creativity).

Aritha Cawthorn, London,

Dear Mr Morrison,
Your actually lucky that help was available in the hospital.
I am waiting with baited breath for the first article on the current sitution where several hospitals "have an exciting oppertunity for team work" they are taking the doctors out of the hospital at night.
No this isn't a joke, hospitals are now running hospitals with nurses instead, glad i don't live on the Wirral.

D M, Fareham,

I learned "How Horatius Held the Bridge " when I was eight and I have always assumed that the ranks of Tuscany DID give the old chap a cheer ! Now you've worried me ! Incidentally if you're going for a boring walk, reciting it to yourself - or out loud ! - relieves the tedium.

Jacqueline Toff, Radlett, Herts

Re the line in the poem..."even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer"...in the Collins Gem Thesaurus, one of the meanings given for "forbear" is "decline". So, if you read the line as, "even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce decline to cheer", it means they did cheer.

Freda Stobo, Libberton, Scotland

It drives us ambulance crews mad that due to the governments actions we can't provide the care to the people who really need it. At that time of the night the ambulance crews who were working were probably dealing with drunks rather than with people who genuinely need our help.

It's something I often moan about on my blog.

Tom Reynolds, London, UK

Having just read about your prolonged wait for an ambulance to attend your 86 year old relative I would like to inform you that this is happening up and down the country.
I am a serving firefighter in the north of england and have recently been called out (on a fire engine) to a collapsed 91 year old male in a bathroom at 9:30 in the morning. We were informed on route that the ambulance service would not attend until more information was available.
We found the casualty did need advanced medical care and so a paramedic was sent for who then decided that an ambulance was indeed required and so three emergency vehicles and 45 minutes later this gentleman received the correct response and treatment.
This is not an unusual occurrence in the fire service at present and I would suggest that the reason they sent a fire engine is that we are the only emergency service left that will respond without
question and within minutes of the call, but for how long?

Name withheld, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

Diverging somewhat from the point Richard was making about his old lady, she was lucky to have someone to respond to her call. I also am in danger of falling - so far have been able to drag myself to somewhere I can pull myself up but the day must come when I cannot. - But I cannot have a pendant because all my neighbours have problems of their own and cannot reasonably be asked to be keyholders.

I tried suggesting to Age Concern that they might set up a panel of volunteers who would be prepared to be keyholders for those who have no one to call upon, but the lack of interest was deafening.

Pauline, Plymouth,

Dear Mr Morrison, You expressed my total frustration with the NHS. I spent many years working in the NHS and have seen first hand the rediculous decisions made about provision of services. Health Visitor numbers are falling due to failure to recruit and train them. They are in the best position to support parents with young children and to fulfil a preventive role with regard to post natal depression, child abuse and domestic violence, which are apparently prime objectives for this government!
A few months ago I started working as an independent health visitor becuse I felt this was the only way for me to maintain ethical standards in my work.
I am very sad. If the vast amuonts of money apparently spent on the NHS had be used to support basic services first rather than spin friendly initiatives I believe we would now have motivated staff working in an efficient and cost effective NHS to the benefit of all of us.

Jane Shire, Maidenhead, Berkshire

That's just how it is in Blair's Britain.
Accept it.
No point complaining, nothing happens (except maybe a focus group)

fothers, aylesbury, bucks

I am currently 12 weeks pregnant. Last Wednesday i started experiencing severe cramps and bleeding. Orginally my partner called the NHS Direct help line but they weren't really much help. We then called 999 when i started being violently sick. All i could think about was my baby and if it would survive. The 999 operator told us that the paramedics would call us back in 20 minutes! I have never felt to angry and betrayed by the NHS in all my life, my partner was also fuming and in the end broke speed limits to get me to an A&E (empty when we got there), where it took about 2 hours to be admitted. Thankfully everything was ok but as a first time mum and not knowing what to expect, i have never felt fear like it.

Bianca Graham, Stevenage, UK