Trust CEOs accuse police of ‘high stakes game of chicken’

Ambulance chiefs have warned that patients are coming to harm, paramedics are being assaulted and control room staff reporting a “high stakes game of chicken” with police during the implementation of a controversial new national care model.

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives say in a newly published letter they believe the “spirit” of national agreement on how to implement the Right Care, Right Person model is not being followed by police, raising “significant safety concerns”.

The membership body set out multiple concerns about the rollout of the model, under which the police refuse to attend mental health calls unless there is a risk to life or of serious harm.

In the letter to Commons health and social care committee chair Steve Brine, AACE chair Daren Mochrie says timescales for introducing it were often “set by the police rather than “agreed” following meaningful engagement with partners”, meaning demand was shifting before health systems had built capacity. They also flag a lack of NHS funding to meet the new asks. 

Mr Mochrie, also CEO of North West Ambulance Service Trust, described a “grey area” relating to what he called “concern for welfare” calls, which meet neither the police nor attendance services’ threshold for attendance.

“To date this is the single biggest feedback theme we have heard from ambulance services, with some control room staff describing feeling like they’re in a ‘high-stakes game of chicken’ where the police have refused to attend and told the caller to hang up, redial 999 and ask for an ambulance,” he wrote.

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Source: HSJ, 20 February 2024