[pfannkuchen]

The dispatcher must not have understood right? This is like evil levels of incompetence otherwise, because the system can’t possibly be designed to do that right? So the dispatcher must have been in the wrong, but to make the dispatcher not completely evil we have to make her merely stupid and/or careless. That’s terrifying. Where did they go to if you don’t mind me asking?

[roryirvine]

Yeah. Ambulance services have been hard-pressed in the UK in recent years, especially in the immediate aftermath of Covid - but this should very clearly have been a Category 1 call (unconscious, difficulty breathing, or heart attack symptoms).

Last month in England (each country in the UK has its own stats), the mean response time (from dialling 999 to the ambulance arriving) for Cat 1 was 8 mins 1 second, and the 90th %ile time was 14m18s. That's a bit above the target response time of 7 mins, but a 3 hour wait strongly suggests a miscategorisation.

"Is the patient breathing? Are they conscious?" are literally the first words on the dispatcher's script, so something seems to have gone terribly wrong here.

[rich_sasha]

As I understand, the dispatcher simply said there ain't no ambulances around. It was 2024 - so well after COVID (though the NHS never really recovered, it seems).

They took her to the nearest hospital, in Oxford, next morning. She seemed fine. Doctors said, can't reproduce the bug, ticket closed.