Heartbeat.

[RogerL]

When I had my event in April the Community Hospital could not deal with it but offered to call an ambulance, but did warn us of long delays. So my wife opted to drive me to Bath A&E. On arrival there were 8 ambulances waiting, and an off duty nurse, who was waiting with her elderly mum, took me straight to the AE reception and told me that earlier in the day there had been 17 ambulances waiting. Once booked in I was dealt with very well.

Delays at A&E causing ambulances to wait is very inefficient financially, 2 crew + ambulance itself costs a lot more than an A&E nurse monitoring several patients - but it's not easy to extend many A&Es either in staffing levels or space/equipment - and made worse in a lot of cases by the difficulty of getting GP appointments so people go to A&E instead..

 

[otherclive]

Following in from Dustys thought provoking first post this article from todays BBC News shows the importance of training in CPR from an early age.

Could I have saved my parents' lives if I'd been taught CPR?

Cameron McGerr lost both his parents and is campaigning to have life-saving first aid taught in schools.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Hutch]

Whilst I was doing my diving training with the BSAC, We were taught how to give CPR , whilst bringing someone back to a boat or to the shoreline.
It is definitely worth doing the short St John's, CPR and Defibrillator course, and it's free.
The CPR , was combined with Mouth to Mouth,. Extremely difficult to do.