The NHS is relentlessly busy: our beds have been full for months and we’re having to assess patients in ambulances
There’s a red phone in the accident and emergency department I work in. It rings at a pitch and rhythm that catches the attention of those who have spent long enough working here. I have not been in the department for long; two months in A&E as part of my first two years as a doctor. As a junior doctor who’s new to the department, I’m used to missing the phone’s staccato sound.
The phone is used exclusively to tell us that an ambulance is about to arrive with someone who is very ill. In the past six weeks, it has been ringing a lot. Last week it went off and for once I heard it, so I dutifully went to the resuscitation bays. I waited with a nurse at one of the cubicles for the patient to arrive. He was soon brought in by two paramedics. His story was familiar: he’d come into the hospital three days before with a mild cough, feeling short of breath. His oxygen was low, but not low enough to be admitted. Now he was back.
