Braintree: Epileptic mum "kept waiting" for ambulance (From Braintree and Witham Times)

So it's actually an epileptic daughter, not an epileptic mum!

The daughter is also a Mum to a 15-month daughter , the story is correct.An Epileptic Mum.

Unless you take the trouble to inform your readers what the actual required timeframes are this article has very little substance.

Readers have no way of determining just how late the ambulance was in arriving at the patient’s location - if indeed it was late at all.

What were the required criteria?

At least you read the article properly, unlike me who saw the photo of what looked like two school children ...

here you go....."the national target of responding to 95% of calls within 19 minutes ".

Anyone interested in gaining a little more insight into this problem is recommended to take a look at the following website.

It doesn’t auger well!
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19, 32 -- FIFTY minutes for an emergency call? And this is spoken in measured tones that imply acceptance? I am aghast. Nineteen minutes to attend to someone with a myocardial infarction (heart attack) pretty-much prescribes death to the patient. It is atrocious: and don't tell me that the 999 operator or the person requesting the emergency aid is in the position to determine triaging. That is the job of the paramedic. And the NHS costs HOW much to the individual tax payor?

As recently as 1st February there was a report in the Halstead Gazette under the heading ‘Paramedic's Concern over Ambulance Response Times’. The report stated that ‘Heart Attack Patients are more likely to survive in Colchester than rural villages around Halstead because they have more resources.
He went on to say that the local ambulance is often diverted to Colchester, where there is high demand.

Only the previous December there was earlier report in the same paper which drew attention to an occurrence whereby a 77 year old gentleman with a broken hip lay in the road for an hour and a half whilst waiting for an ambulance.

Incredibly, not a single murmur of discontent from anyone in the eleven thousand populace of Halstead was published in the Gazette’s on-line comment facility.

The message I infer from all this is that there really is a problem and that if people truly want something positive done about they have to do a hell of a lot more to make their concerns known than is currently happening at the moment.

I note with great interest that the citizens of Braintree and Halstead share the same Member of Parliament. His website sates that he will ‘Defend the Interests of Local People’ and will be a ‘Strong Voice for Braintree, for Halstead, and all our Rural Communities’.

Surely he has got to the focal point for your initial concerns apropos this matter. It’s all very well and proper that the odd individual concerns are aired via the medium of newspaper comments sections such as this, but I venture to suggest that what is required in relation to the ‘Ambulance Response Time Crisis’ is for a massive groundswell of public opinion to be voiced through Parliament so that something positive can be done about it.

Write to your MP - all of you - and do it now. Don’t sit around waiting for someone else to do it for you otherwise you will simply be part of the problem not the solution.

What I don't understand it the reluctance of people to get involved - to make a statement (other than simply moan and groan over a pint or on the pages of a witless rag like this).

I agree completely, OMPITA: get up and be heard! Write to your MP; write emails; make telephone calls; ask Mr. Brooks Newmark how they manage to provide a service in his native country (USA) far in advance of the NHS yet under the aegis of a commercial system. If the EMT/paramedics took a quarter of the time it takes in the UK, there would be hell to pay And rightfully so. And, BTW, the cost is not an issue until AFTER the service is provided. This is pretty-much true across the entire USA - an enormous country by comparison far more diverse in its opinions and yet with thirty percent less representatives and a far better devolution of power to the region centers. Surely, if the US can do it, the UK should be able to.

IF you make your voice heard and the pols are made to pay attention: as FU said (HoC) - "Put a little stick about".

Last March I wrecked my ankle in a fall at home. When I came to I crawled back into the house and called an ambulance. I live alone. I called a friend too. He took half an hour to arrive.
The ambulance took four and a half hours. The paramedic made it in four hours.
There'd been an accident on the A12 and I wasn't a priority. I live in Braintree a mile from the ambulance station.
Not a priority. Think about it.
Next time there's an accident on the A12, you with the stroke, you with the chest pains, the child with the funny spots, the aged mum who isn't answering the phone.....