"My journey to A&E"

My son called an ambulance for me late one evening in early December.

Advised ambulance could be over an hour so decided we would make our own way to A&E however, ambulance arrived before we were ready to leave.

Paramedics Stewart & Evo/Evie attended checked my vitals & gave me nebuliser, decision to take me to A&E was made.

On arriving at A&E we were informed could be as long as an 8 hour wait to get into A&E Dept due to ongoing queue.

During this time I was monitored & cared for by Stewart, a very well mannered, polite & friendly gentleman who kept me warm & attended to my medical needs .. he is a credit to the NHS & ambulance service .. 

You may think I would be annoyed by the delay however, my anger isn’t at this service which was exemplary towards me, it is towards upper management. 

I would like to know how many ambulances actually cover Ayrshire & Arran .. in as much as I’m aware it’s much less than 20? 

For an area that covers Arran as well.

This hardly seems enough in my humble opinion, add to this the fact that the staff cannot finish their shift whilst they have a patient in their ambulance.

Personally I don’t think that this is good enough for an emergency service & it is filled with flaws that affect both the patient & the staff.. not forgetting the potential patient that may be waiting on an ambulance to get to them.

This should be a matter of urgency addressing this ongoing issue. 

My solution would be having fewer pencil pushers who seem to know nothign about how services should be run cost effectively & let those below the hierarchy run the ship so to speak, as they are the ones who actually know how to.

On a friendlier note, again I’d like to wholeheartedly thank the paramedics for their due diligence & care toward me in the 7+hours that I spent in the ambulance outside the hospital.