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London Ambulance (public domain Captain Roger Fenton|Flickr)London Ambulance Service apologises to seriously injured cyclist left waiting for more than an hour
The London Ambulance Service (LAS) has apologised after a cyclist, seriously injured in a collision with a car being driven in Ruislip, west London, waited more than an hour for paramedics and was treated by police officers.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson confirmed a man in his 40s remains in hospital in a "serious condition" and officers were required to offer first aid during the wait eyewitnesses described as "more than an hour" before an ambulance arrived.
A passing driver told the Evening Standard: "I saw one police car attending giving first aid. The cyclist was in recovery with a hi-vis jacket covering him, the police must have got there quickly. I returned from Harrow and there were now two police cars and the cyclist was still lying in the road. But no ambulance."
A LAS spokesperson apologised for the delay and said the incident in Brackenhill, Ruislip Manor at 6pm on Monday happened at their busiest hour of the day.
"We apologise to patients who may have to wait longer than usual for an ambulance at this busy time and we are doing everything we can to improve our response times," they said.
"The time of the incident on Monday was the busiest hour of the day and we received almost 300 999 calls."
The Standard highlighted how the incident came on the same day NHS England published its January response time figures, showing that the average response time for 'Category 2' incidents (a serious condition, such as stroke or chest pain, which may require rapid assessment and/or urgent transport) was one hour 24 minutes, 12 times the NHS target.
The average was also 23 minutes slower than the previous record of 61 minutes seen last July and contrasts the 25 minutes response time for the same category of incidents back in December 2019.
In January we also heard from a road.cc reader who experienced concerning wait times in a west London hospital having been driven to A&E after being told the wait for an ambulance would be two to three hours.
The reader was commuting home through Richmond when he hit a large pothole, throwing him from his bike "and landing on my head, causing severe pain and screaming".
"Passersby came to assist me and a doctor happened to be present and began to assess my condition. I attempted to sit up but my left arm was immobile and I realised it was injured. I was unable to determine the extent of my other injuries," the reader explained.
> Pothole pain — a road.cc reader's tale
The doctor passing by checked his spine and neck and the rider made his own way to hospital due to the long wait time, worsened by the wet and cold conditions.
Once at hospital things did not improve. "My experience at the A&E department was extremely difficult. I had to wait for over five hours without receiving any attention from medical staff, which caused my wife and family to leave. I was in a wheelchair and had to navigate my way around the department while not knowing the extent of my injury," the reader told us.
"During the night, I underwent several scans, during which I nearly passed out due to the severe pain. Unfortunately, there was no pain relief provided by the NHS and I was told that if I did not undergo the scans, my injury would not be treated properly. Despite feeling faint from the pain, I pushed through and eventually received a scan, after which a cast was put on my arm.
"I was recently assessed and it was discovered that I had suffered multiple injuries, including broken ribs on my left side, a fracture in my elbow and damage to my neck."
The reader described the anxiety caused by the uncertainty of the hospital stay, passing out due to the pain of the bone being repositioned, and was later told the bone would not heal properly so he would have to undergo surgery.
"After the surgery, I thought the worst was over, but soon after the doctors came back in and informed me that the cast had been applied incorrectly, so I had to go through another round of scans and have a new cast put on. This caused me to experience the same level of pain again and it was a very difficult and frustrating experience," the reader continued.
"My entire experience with the NHS was terrible, from the long wait times, to the lack of pain management. Even though I am now on the road to recovery, the whole experience has left me feeling scared and unsure about getting back on my bike. I hope that the situation in the NHS can improve soon, so that others don't have to go through a similar experience."
The pothole was repaired the day after the crash and road.cc contacted the NHS Foundation Trust which runs the hospital the reader was treated at but has not received a reply.
Have you suffered a cycling-related injury which required hospital treatment this winter? What was your experience of the NHS? Did you need an ambulance? If so, how long was the response time?
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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19 comments
Funny, that...
Reading some of the media, an hour's wait is actually pretty good...
Hi, I'm the guy that was injured in the Richmond incident. While I was lying on the wet road, the Dr at the scene said if you stay here you will get hypothemia, so you need to get off the road. I took a gamble, without knowing the true extent of my injuries, I had to get up and go into a near shop. An hour on the road could have been fatal for me...
That sounds horrible and is why I've got an emergency foil blanket stowed on my bike.
Wishing you a speedy recovery.
Wasn't disputing it, ferdeen. I'd just meant that the media is full of "little old lady waits 96 hours for an ambulance after falling down stairs" type stories at present.
I hope you're doing better, now?
Yes, sorry I was giving my perspective and understand your angle. I'm in physio, still a bit sore, but way better than 4 weeks ago. Thanks!
The Tories have been in power since 2010 and the NHS is on its knees. Go figure.
Nah, there can't be any link between the party in power for so long and all the bad things that have been happening in that time... It's all Corbyn's fault, or Tony Blair.
I think its safe to say its all Corbyn's fault. Imagine where we'd be if he'd actually got into power... all speaking russian and living in mud huts by now for certain.
In all seriousness, I'm growing increasingly frustrated by the general apathy of the general population towards the awful state of our country. Every day we are told of another failure / issue and given some half assed excuse about Russia, pendemic bounceback, blah blah blah.
No one questions it. No one is saying 'why?' or more importantly 'what are we going to do about it?', 'could it be better?'
We should be rioting.
**please note I am aware of the hypocrasy in the above as I type this on my lunch break in the office**
Good point, look at how he managed to ruin the country without even being in power! Mind you, right-
thinking folks might have been concerned that Labour's share of the vote increased during his tenure. Happily for them he - a euroskeptic - apparently fell foul of Brexit and got Johnsoned, finally leading to a huge Conservative majority!
It's almost like they want it to fail so they can sell it off to their mates for a nice little consideration.
Labour have been running the Welsh NHS since 1997 and it's in an even worse state than NHS England.
Go figure.
Unsurprisingly its not that clear cut. Scroll down to the end, but worth reading all the way.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/how-well-is-the-nhs-in-wales-...
That seems to confirm what I was saying.
Worse performance on almost all metrics and over a far longer period.
I though this was the most telling quote:
"The Welsh government has simply chosen not to focus its budget on health to the same extent as governments in London"
As opposed to "30% better funded Social care" or " Welsh population has overall worse health"
As I said not clear cut. But you keep on cherry picking.
It's not cherry picking.
The Welsh NHS is underperforming relative to England, Welsh Labour choose to divert funding away from the NHS.
If the population is genuinely sicker does that seem like a sensible choice?
It's all well and good talking up what they're spending the diverted money on but you can't lose sight of where the money has been diverted from.
1/3 of all ambulance call outs are for 0.6% of the patient population. In many cases these emergency call outs are subsequently classified as wasted calls / "frequent fliers" - effectively a small number of patients are consuming a huge share of capacity for spurious calls - often drink / drugs / mental health related.
https://www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/articles/one-percent-population-...
The solution to this problem is entirely within the gift of the NHS and has very little to do with the NHS being "on its knees":
- failure to update Triage protocols by LAS to de-prioritise time wasters
- failure to coordinate with drug / alcohol / mental health services
- failure to collaborate between Ambulance Services and Primary Care (using GPs to address the root cause).
This is also compounded by the NHS having recently completed a national procurement for new Ambulance Vehicles that can't be driven by around 1/4 of their staff (too short / too tool). The first ambulance trust to receive these vehicles is reported here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61847310
The NHS has around 600 CEOs all paid close to £1/2m a year inc pensions - maybe at some point they could get on with running it properly.
If running it poorly affected their salaries and bonuses (and other accountabilities) maybe they would run it properly...
But when targets are hit the financials and not patient care levels it won't work.
That's astonishing if true. Worth quoting the article
Particularly the line about young people.
I was aware that certain populations consume proportionally massive amounts of resources though. That is behind certain ideas to try different interventions which emphasise the social dimension and which minimize harm and also reduce cost. Sadly the UK mostly still finds this "beyond the pale" eg. drug use rooms, provision of medical-grade drugs or alcohol to long-term addicts.