A woman has said she was left in agony when an ambulance took three hours to respond to a 999 call after a fall.
A spokesperson for East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) said: "We don't have sufficient time to look into the detail to respond to this."
"EMAS is a 24/7 service. We answer 500,000 emergency calls per annum and that's our priority."

(My emphasis)

Wow...

I never thought I'd hear an ambulance service say this. I guess that the person on the other end of the phone to the reporter was having a really bad day.

I wonder if this means I can get away with telling a patient that, "I don't have time to deal with your cut finger".

(My back of a fag packet numbers for London is that we have over 1.2 million calls a year, I'm sure the official figures are out there someone but I can't be bothered to look them up. I'm working in a few hours and yes, I know we have more ambulances than EMAS).

From the wonderful XKCD

Very unsatisfied today - mostly because I tried to get an iPhone 3G. The rest need not be said.

With regard to the 'Warranted' post - We decided not to tell the police, after all they almost certainly have his address and will make an appointment to arrest him in the future (I learnt this from reading police blogs). He wasn't a threat to anyone apart from himself and in his distressed frame of mind (and fear of the police) it wouldn't have done his health any good to have the police hovering over him.

We did however let the nurse who took over care for him know, she needed to know as it could impact his further care.

I'm now going to potentially identify someone, not a patient obviously, but there is a reason behind this.

We were sent to a car crash on the A406 yesterday between Ilford and Barking, the traffic was moving exceptionally slowly due to the accident, so we had to squeeze through the lanes of traffic. As we travelled on blue lights and sirens the traffic parted before us like the red sea.

Which is why I was fuming when my crewmate told me that we were being followed.

Some [expletive deleted] in his car was tailgating us through the jam, keeping close to our behind he was jumping the queue that everyone else had been sitting in.

Now, ethics aside, this is incredibly dangerous - I often have to brake hard and he could have gone into the back of me, so I had to slow down the speed I was driving. This sort of behaviour has caused more than one accident when the ambulance driver has had to hit the brakes because, for example, a dog has run out into the road.

My crewmate went into the back of the ambulance and got his license plate number...

We reached the accident and dealt with the patient and while my crewmate was taking the patient's details I had a little chat with one of the police officers there. I explained what had happened, and he took the driver's license plate number.

"Right", he said, "I'll give him a call in the morning..."

It's an offence to impede the progress of an emergency vehicle, something this driver was doing even though he was behind me - hopefully he'll be charged with this as I believe it is a £500 fine. That'll teach the [expletive deleted] a lesson.

I mention where the accident took place so that if anyone in the queue was passed by this driver they can also have the similar warm glow that we had in setting the police on him.