"The Medway Handyman" wrote in message
om...
Frank Erskine wrote:
On Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:43:32 +0100, Harry Bloomfield
had this to say:

Colin Wilson used his keyboard to write :


Has anyone else had this, who can give me a clue how quick the
injections normally start to work ?

The NHS Direct site simply suggests calling 999 !NOW!

Not an expert, but that does not sound like tennis elbow - do a 999!

Rather than 999, or a long wait in A&E, do you have a local NHS
walk-in centre? These are nurse-led, and triage is usually MUCH
quicker than at A&E. '999' does seem a bit extreme, but IANAM.

A pal of mine called at one the other day with a bit of a pain in his
chest and within minutes was carted off to CCU by the 'resident'
ambulance at the WIC.
(AFAIK he's still extant, although he's in another hospital - neither
hospital can find any signs of VT). Looks like I may have to wait a
while for a game of squash...

Any mention of chest pain or indeed difficulty in breathing automatically
kicks in as a CatA call and the ambulance service have to respond in 8
minutes.

It takes me longer than that to drive past the Ambulance station and I can
do some of that at 70mph, which I've never seen an Ambulance achieve.

You are much more likely to get an FRU turning up to meet the target and
they can't transport you to A&E, so a regular ambulance will have to
attend as well - more cost to the NHS, longer time to get you to A&E &
less staff available to react to emergency calls - but never mind, it
meets the Guvmint targets.

What is an FRU? When I had a suspected heart attack (I'm still waiting for
someone to make a positive statement as to what it actually was) and when
one of my employees reported chest pains a few years ago, what turned up on
each occasion was called a Cardiac Ambulance. In the case of my employee (he
actually had a collapsed lung), they attached an ECG machine that was radio
linked to the hospital and spoke to the doctor who was looking at the
results. It took about half an hour before they took him away. With me, they
simply took my pulse - 240bpm - and put me straight into the Ambulance.

Colin Bignell