When to call 999 and 111
At some point, most people will either witness or be involved in an accident, or experience a medical or mental health emergency.
Knowing what to do next and who to call can potentially save lives.
Life-threatening emergencies
Call 999 in a medical or mental health emergency. This is when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk.
These emergencies can include:
Call 999 immediately if you think you or someone else is having a heart attack or stroke. Every second counts with these conditions.
Also call 999 if you think someone has had a major trauma, such as after a serious road traffic accident, a stabbing, a shooting, a fall from height, or a serious head injury.
Find out more about urgent and emergency care services or how to get urgent help for mental health.
Information:
If you’re not sure what to do
NHS 111 can help if you need urgent medical help or you’re not sure what to do.
They will ask questions about your symptoms so you get the help you need.
If you need to go to A&E, NHS 111 will book an arrival time. This might mean you spend less time in A&E. This also helps with social distancing.
You can get help from NHS 111 online or call 111. It’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Get help from NHS 111 online
What happens when I call 999?
If it’s a genuine emergency, where someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk, call 999 and don’t panic.
You can contact emergency services via SMS if you’re deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.
Visit the emergencySMS website for more information or to register your phone.
1. Answer the questions
Once you’re connected to a call handler, you’ll have to answer a series of questions to establish what’s wrong, such as:
- where are you (including the area or postcode)?
- what phone number are you calling from?
- what has happened?
This will allow the operator to determine the most appropriate response as quickly as possible.
Dialling 999 does not necessarily mean an ambulance will be dispatched. The call handler will decide what’s appropriate.
It may be safe enough for you to be seen elsewhere, or you can be given telephone advice by a medically trained clinical adviser.
An ambulance will be sent if it’s a life-threatening emergency.
Response units that could be dispatched include:
- an emergency ambulance
- a rapid response vehicle or motorbike
- a cycle response unit
- a community first responder
- a combination of the above
2. Do not hang up yet
Wait for a response from the ambulance control room. They might have further questions for you, such as:
- what’s the age, gender and medical history of the patient?
- is the person awake or conscious and breathing?
- is there any serious bleeding or chest pain?
- what is the injury and how did it happen?
The person handling your call will let you know when they have all the information they need.
You might also be given instructions about how to give first aid until the ambulance arrives.
3. How you can assist the ambulance crew
There are a number of things you can do to assist the ambulance service.
For example, stay calm and:
- if you’re in the street, stay with the patient until help arrives
- if you’re in a dark house, turn on lights and open curtains
- if you’re in a car, turn on hazard lights
- call the ambulance service back if the patient’s condition changes
- call the ambulance service back if your location changes
- if you’re calling from home or work, ask someone to open the door and direct the paramedics to where they’re needed
- lock away family pets
- if you can, write down the patient’s GP details and collect any medicine they’re taking
- if you can, tell the paramedics about any allergies the patient has
If appropriate, you may want to call the patient’s GP. The GP may meet you at the A&E department, or call with important information about the patient.
How to give first aid
If someone is injured in an incident, first check that you and the casualty are not in any danger. If you are, make the situation safe.
When it’s safe to do so, assess the casualty and, if necessary, dial 999 for an ambulance. You can then carry out basic first aid.
It’s important to stay calm and try to get an overview of the situation.
See if you can identify what the most serious problem is. The most obvious problem is not always the most serious.
Treat the most life-threatening problems first, such as:
- lack of breathing
- bleeding
- shock
If a person is not breathing normally after an accident, call an ambulance and start CPR straight away if you can.
If a person is unconscious but is breathing and has no other life-threatening conditions, they should be placed in the recovery position.
Check for broken bones and other injuries afterwards.
NHS App
If you’re a patient at our practice you can now use the new NHS App, a simple and secure way to access a range of NHS services on your smartphone or tablet.
You can use the NHS App to check your symptoms and get instant advice, book appointments, order repeat prescriptions, view your GP medical record and more.
Find out more
Age Concern
Too many older people feel they have no one to turn to for support, my feel alone and isolated within their homes or the Coronavirus has impacted social events. Age UK is a charity based company that provides help and support when you need it the most.
Find out more
Versus Arthritis
There are over 10 million people living with arthritis, that’s one in six, with over half of those living in pain every day. Versus Arthritis are volunteers, healthcare professionals, researchers and friends that are committed to push back against arthritis.
Find out more
Smoking
Quitting is not easy, but you can make drastic improvements to your life and health, reducing your risk of developing illness, disability or death caused by cancer, heart or lung disease. Just imagine how much extra money you will have in your pocket – if you smoke just one pack a day it can cost you £50 a week.
You will:
- Save money
- Reduce the chances of your children suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma attacks, meningitis and ear infections
- Protect the health of those around you by not exposing them to second hand smoke
- Improve your fertility levels and your chance of a healthy pregnancy and baby
- Improve your breathing and general fitness
- Even enjoy the taste of food more!
If you would like support to stop smoking please ring Bradford Stop Smoking Service on 01274 437700 to book a place.
Find out more
Carers And Young Carers
A carer is someone who, without payment, provides help and support to a friend, neighbour or relative who could not manage otherwise because of frailty, illness or disability. They may even be juggling paid work with caring responsibilities at home. If you are a young carer you may be juggling school or collage. Carers have a tough job – it can mean unrelenting pressure, little chance to relax and a lot of worry. The system is complicated, and the issue is hidden.
Carers’ Resource provides support for carers, no matter what their age, race, religion or needs. Follow the links to discover what support we can offer you as a carer, or as someone who might work with carers.
We deliver services in Bradford, Craven, Harrogate and Selby Districts.
https://www.carersresource.org/
Drugs & Alcohol
Misuse of Alcohol
Alcohol can be a contributing factor to more short and long-term health issues than you realise. It can also adversely affect your work, your social life, your relationships and your family.
So how much is too much?
We’re all different. Your height, weight and gender will all play a part in how alcohol affects you, and even what you’ve had to eat that day or how much sleep you’ve had recently can make a difference to how you feel when you drink. So, if you want to enjoy a drink and stay safe your best bet is to stick to the daily unit guidelines.
What is a unit?
People should not regularly drink more than the daily unit guidelines of 3-4 units of alcohol for men (equivalent to a pint and a half of 4% beer) and 2-3 units of alcohol for women (equivalent to a 175 ml glass of wine). Regularly drinking more than this will adversely affect your health.
Visit www.drinkaware.co.uk for more advice on how to control your alcohol intake.
The Piccadilly Project in Bradford provides help and advice for people aged 18+ who have current or recent problems with alcohol use or their relatives /carers.
Call the Piccadilly Project on 01274 735775.
Drugs
Drug addiction is a very complicated issue; the addict needs much more than willpower to overcome it due to its adverse impact on the brain. It costs society a lot of money and also claims many lives. You are addicted to a drug if you have developed such a habit of taking a certain drug that you feel compelled to keep taking it. If you try to stop, it causes you to be uncomfortable, often physically as well as emotionally.
Find out more at www.talktofrank.com
In Bradford, the Bridge Project may be able to help. They run clinics at our Great Horton surgery, but these must be booked through Bridge on 01274 723863.
Visit www.bridge-bradford.org.uk for more information.
Diabetes
Please click here to complete Blood Glucose Readings document before your next diabetic appointment.
Find out more
Long Term Conditions Management
Sometimes we will need to review your long term conditions management to ensure that we have up to date information recorded about your ongoing health matters and to allow us to discuss in detail your own concerns and queries along with ensuring that any medications prescribed to treat the conditions are working well or to adjust them if required.
When we invite you into the practice to have relevant tests taken (usually once a year but sometimes more frequently) we will generally invite you to arrange appointments by text message and we will also direct you to this page on our website in order for you to be able to read more information prior to your appointments. You can see that further information on the links below
Annual Long Term Conditions appointments information
Annual information about having your sugar levels checked
Inhaler Swap
Breathing better
At the Ridge Medical Practice we really want to do the best for our patients with COPD and asthma, keeping you as fit and well as possible. We also want to protect the environment, providing cleaner air for you to breathe and reducing carbon emissions. To achieve all these goals we are planning to switch some of your inhalers to ones which are better for the environment, but which are still the same medication, doing the same job in your lungs. This is not a cost cutting exercise, as if anything these types of inhalers are slightly more expensive than your old ones.
The best swap is from an MDI (metered dose inhaler) to a DPI (dry powder inhaler). It is the delivery system in MDI inhalers which is bad for the environment and so, in the long term, bad for your lungs.
More information
