NHS finally goes off its trolley

DEPRESSING evidence at the weekend that before long, we may regard it as a privilege even to spend hours waiting on an NHS hospital trolley.

I was in Eaton Square on Saturday night when an oriental lady crossing the road was in collision, as we have to say in newspapers, with a motorbike. She was bloody and unconscious, lying in the road as the shocked French rider limped over and called 999 on his mobile.

He looked at the phone in bewilderment. "Is the emergency number here 999?"

he asked. We bystanders confirmed that it was.

"That's what I dialled, but there's just a recording to say they're busy," he said.

He tried again as the victim bled and, after a good few minutes, was lucky enough to get through to the 999 operator.

There was then a kerfuffle over where we were. According to the Frenchman, they were saying they didn't know of any Eaton Square, and did we mean Eaton Place?

Remembering there's an Eton Place miles away in NW3, I was just getting him to spell the location out when a police bomb-squad car passed by. We flagged it down.

As a result, while the geography lesson was proceeding, the lady was treated by two armed coppers.

The ambulance still hadn't arrived when we left the scene.

The 999 service is clearly stretched to buggery. So how long now before it's replaced by a proper up-to-date telephone-tree option system?

"If you know your name, how many fingers I'm holding up and who the Prime Minister is, please press 1. If you're unconscious, please press 2. If you're seeing merely stars, press the star button."

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