It's a sign of the times. My wife has just come back from a night shift (she's and A&E Doc) to inform me that there has been a 12 hour breach, and no beds in any of the Bristol Hospitals. Apparently all the wards that can be have been opened, and there is no more that can be done. Well tell that to the patients who need urgent treatment. I start days tommorrow on the RRV, I wonder how long i am going to be sat there with a poorly patient waiting for an ambulance to arrive because every vehicle is stuck at A&E? The local council have shut all the council run homes locally (except for the odd one), so all the older members of the local population who can't look after themselves are bed blocking in hospital. It's not just about the NHS it's about the system. Locally they have been cutting things like home help, all little things which have a huge knock-on effect. It's other little things like Out of Hours GP services (and GPs come to that) often they just tell people to call an ambulance without a visit. A little old lady was mortified that we had been called the other day! As for the crowd control thing...i agree, the nurses and docs deserve medals. They do an extremely hard job (incl. the 4 hour wait thing!) But hey, locally nurses have left for other jobs and not enough money to replace them. They are opening up wards to direct admissions when the ward and the staff (through no fault of their own) are not equipped to deal with them, as I found almost to my Dad's cost this weekend, they don't follow the correct treatment pathways, there is one doc per 4 medical wards...paracetamol for cardiac chest pain?! I really don't know anymore! *frustrated*