"The patient was *lovely*, she was sorry to have called us out and was, as is common with our older patients, worried that she was wasting our time." - I know exactly what you mean. We had a very similar job a few weeks ago: elderly lady (this time in a care home) with a suspected CVA. She was unresponsive when we arrived; so we gave her some O2, did some obs and took her to get checked out. She recovered nicely with the O2 (I don't think she had had a CVA) and we had a nice chat (and a bit of a flirt) on the way in. As with your patient, she was absolutely lovely and worried about wasting our time (which of course, she wasn't). Compare and contrast: one night recently we were called to an 18-yr old male with abdo pain, which he had had for four hours (lives with parents, 3 cars on the drive). Granted he may have been in pain but that was no justification for the way he treated us (esp. my crewmate, who was attending). He was a sullen, obnoxious little git who insisted on laying on the trolley with his coat over his head and refused to let us do any checks on him. About 45 minutes after we got to hospital I saw him walking around with a big grin on his face and no sign of any pain. Remarkable recovery, I thought.