Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Ambulance'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 321 results
  1. News Article
    Some of the country’s GP are advising patients requiring urgent hospital care to “get an Uber” or use a relative’s car because of the worst ever delays in the ambulance service in England. Patients with breathing difficulties and other potentially serious conditions are being told in some cases that they are likely to be transferred more quickly from a general practice to accident and emergency if they travel by cab or private vehicle. NHS England data shows that October’s average ambulance response times for category 1 to 3 emergencies, which cover all urgent conditions, appear to be the highest since the categories were introduced nationally in 2017. Some patients who require emergency treatment may have to wait several hours for an ambulance to arrive. Dr Selvaseelan Selvarajah, a GP partner in east London, said: “If somebody is not having a heart attack or a stroke, my default advice is ‘have you got someone who can drive you or do you want to get an Uber?’ “These are patients who may have breathing difficulty or are suffering severe abdominal pain, but their life is not in immediate danger.” He said such patients would have previously been transferred by ambulance. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 November 2022
  2. News Article
    The NHS in England is facing a “perfect winter storm” with 10 times more people in hospital with flu than this time last year, and ambulances experiencing deadly delays when arriving at A&E with sick patients. There were an average of 344 patients a day in hospitals in England with flu last week, more than 10 times the number at the beginning of last December. And as many as 3 in 10 patients arriving at hospitals by ambulance are waiting at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams. Health chiefs say the crisis is leading to deaths. The figures on flu and ambulance delays were published by NHS England on Thursday and offered the first weekly snapshot of how hospitals are performing this season. Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, said: “These figures really hammer home just how stretched services already are as we head into a perfect winter storm. Significantly higher numbers of people are in hospital because of flu compared to this time last year, coupled with the fact that Covid-19 has not gone away.” He added: “The life-saving safety net that NHS ambulance services provide is being severely compromised by these unnecessary delays, and patients are dying and coming to harm as a result on a daily basis.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 November 2022
  3. News Article
    Nine acute trusts accounted for a third of all ‘hours lost’ to ambulance handover delays last week, according to new data. The first NHS England winter sitrep data showed wide variation between providers on ambulance handover performance, with a small number of providers accounting for a huge proportion of delays. There were nine trusts where, for each ambulance arrival in the week to 20 November, an average (mean) of more than an hour was lost to handover delays. The providers accounted for around 7,000 hours lost, 33% the national total, despite only accounting for 7% of ambulance arrivals. At University Hospitals Plymouth an average of 2.3 hours were lost. The other trusts were; Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals; East and North Hertfordshire; The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn; Great Western Hospitals; University Hospitals of Leicester; Torbay and South Devon; University Hospitals of North Midlands; and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals. Many of the worst performing hospitals were in the South West and East of England regions, which have previously been identified as areas which struggle on handover delays. Read full story Source: HSJ, 24 November 2022
  4. News Article
    Ambulance crews could not respond to almost one in four 999 calls last month – the most ever – because so many were tied up outside A&Es waiting to hand patients over, dramatic new NHS figures show. An estimated 5,000 patients in England – also the highest number on record – potentially suffered “severe harm” through waiting so long either to be admitted to A&E or just to get an ambulance to turn up to help them. Ambulance officers warned that patients were dying every day directly because of the delays since the service could no longer perform its role as a “safety net” for people needing urgent medical help. “The life-saving safety net that NHS ambulance services provide is being severely compromised by these unnecessary delays and patients are dying and coming to harm as a result on a daily basis,” said Martin Flaherty, managing director of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), which represents the heads of England’s 10 regional NHS ambulance services. Flaherty added: “Our national data for hospital handover delays during October 2022 is extremely worrying and underlines the fact that in some parts of the country efforts to reduce or eradicate these devastating and unnecessary delays are simply not working.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 November 2022
  5. News Article
    Paramedics describe a health service in crisis with a lack of investment and increasing demand, of lengthy waits to transfer patients to hospitals and of a social care system facing collapse. So what does a typical ambulance shift look like? The area covered by the East of England Ambulance Service's nearly 400 front-line ambulances is vast. In 2020-21, the service received nearly 1.2 million 999 calls. Ed Wisken has been a paramedic for 13 years. An advanced paramedic specialising in urgent care, Mr Wisken says: "It is really sad to see patients who have had to wait such a long time for an ambulance - but this is just the culmination of years of underfunding and of reduced resources peaking now where demand outstrips supply." "It is upsetting to see it," he says. "It is not nice to see people who have been waiting hours and hours for an ambulance - but we have really hit crisis point now." He says the morale of fellow paramedics and other healthcare workers is currently very low. "The key is you just have to do just one job at a time and just take the patients that you see and do the best for them," he says. "If you worry about the bigger picture too much you will get frustrated and angry - but that's not going to be beneficial for yourself or your patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 November 2022
  6. News Article
    Ambulance waiting times for stroke and suspected heart attacks have quadrupled in four parts of England since before Covid-19 – whereas others have only grown by half – underlining the severe impact of long accident and emergency handovers. Response times have leapt across England over the past two years, particularly for category 2 and 3 incidents, but the data makes clear that the steepest increases are in areas where hospitals have the biggest handover delay problems. Of the 10 patches with the largest increases in average category 2 performance between 2018-19 and 2021-22, four are served by major hospitals which make up NHS England’s “cohort one” of trusts selected for the worst handover problems; and four more are on government’s list of 15 which accounted for the most long handover delays last winter. The increase in handover delays – in turn linked to delayed discharge, staffing, lack of community services and social care’s collapse – are the stand-out reason for areas with a steep rise in response times. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 18 November 2022
  7. News Article
    Directors of a major hospital have ordered their accident and emergency staff to continue receiving ambulance patients into their department “in all instances”, following angry exchanges with paramedics. Hospital staff and ambulance crews have clashed at the new Royal Liverpool Hospital since its opening last month, after ambulance crews were prevented from bringing patients inside accident and emergency department when it was deemed to be full to capacity. The problems were escalated to hospital directors and North West Ambulance Service Trust earlier this month, resulting in new instructions being issued to the emergency department. In a letter to managers in A&E and the other divisions, seen by HSJ, the three most senior directors at the Royal Liverpool, wrote: “As you are aware we are currently experiencing long delays in accepting handover of patients from ambulance crews. “This phenomenon is not unique to us at the Royal Liverpool, nor is it particularly new, but our recent challenges have undoubtedly been exacerbated due to teams still familiarising themselves with working in a new environment and the patient flow challenges we have been experiencing on site. “However, what has changed has been the extent to which we have managed these pressures by continuing to hold patients in the back of ambulances, which we collectively agree is an unacceptable situation. Whilst providing corridor care is not what any of us would aspire to, we have to recognise and respond to the risk of patients awaiting response in the community. “We have therefore today met with NWAS colleagues and agreed that, with immediate effect, we will, in all instances, continue to receive crews from NWAS into the hospital building.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 16 November 2022
  8. News Article
    Ambulances called to serious emergencies in the East of England, which encompasses Essex, have the longest waiting times of anywhere in the UK, according to new data. The East of England Ambulance Service, which serves the county of Essex, has the longest wait times for life-threatening injuries of anywhere in the country. Ambulances took an average of 11 minutes and 12 seconds to respond to category one calls - those for life threatening injuries - in the Essex region in October. That’s up from 10 minutes 49 seconds in September, and far longer than the 7 minute target set by the NHS. This means it’s also the longest category one response time of any ambulance service in England, as compared to the average wait time for ambulances across England as a whole, category one calls were responded to in an average of 9 minutes and 56 seconds. A spokesperson for the East of England Ambulance Service said: "Our service is under extreme pressure with many ambulances delayed outside hospitals and high call volumes. "To help us respond effectively we have increased our escalation state across the Trust. We urge the public to please support us by using our services wisely and only calling for life-threatening illnesses and injuries." Read full story Source: Essex Live, 10 November 2022
  9. News Article
    The only two female ambulance chief executives in the country have said there is something ‘deeply wrong’ with the culture in ambulance services. Helen Ray, the chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service Foundation Trust, said women working in the ambulance service “accept [inappropriate] banter, they accept sexualised behaviour from their male colleagues, and from patients, and they think it is okay”. She stressed “it is absolutely not [okay]” and said women must be given “safe spaces for talking and speaking up about that”. “There is something deeply wrong with the culture in the ambulance service”, she told the NHS Confederation’s Health and Care Women Leaders Network event on Tuesday. Siobhan Melia, interim chief executive of South East Coast Ambulance Service, said when she joined the trust four months ago on secondment from Sussex Community FT, it felt like she had “landed on a different planet”. Ms Melia said it was a culture “not like any other part of the NHS”. “The gender pay gap in my organisation is significant, so we see men in senior roles are taking it upon themselves to abuse their power, [with] both female students and female lower graded staff.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 November 2022
  10. News Article
    An audit conducted by an acute trust has found more than half the patients taken to one of its hospitals by ambulance were deemed “inappropriate for conveyance”. The assessment at Scarborough Hospital in Yorkshire, obtained by HSJ through a freedom of information request, examined a random sample of 100 patients, of which around 50 arrived by ambulance. Of those arriving by ambulance, half were deemed not to have required an ambulance conveyance. The Missed Opportunities Audit, which the trust said was “routine” and looked at a range of areas where the emergency department could streamline operations, said: “Fifty-two per cent of conveyance[s] by ambulances were deemed as inappropriate". “The reviewer did not have access to the policies of Yorkshire Ambulance Service, which may account for the low number of appropriate conveyances. However, based on clinical judgment for cases presenting by ambulance the arrivals should have presented either to a community service (33%) or via their own transportation methods (38%), as their documented clinical condition and social circumstances allowed for this.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 November 2022
  11. News Article
    South West Ambulance has the longest waits in the country for people to get through to the operator. It takes almost a minute on average for ambulance control to answer 999 calls compared with just five seconds for the West Midlands service. Jean and Claire Iles called 999 six times to request an ambulance for Steven Iles' internal bleeding and two of their calls were unanswered for 10 minutes "He just looked at me and he just passed away before they could even get to him," 41-year-old Claire Iles said. "I rang about 4pm and said he has gone grey, and I said if you don't come now he is going to die, and it was still 20 minutes before the ambulance turned up." She was at home with her parents in Yate, near Bristol, when her father, Steve, 63, fell ill. It took 11 hours for a South West Ambulance crew to arrive, but Jean said by that time it was too late. Mr Iles died at 17:10 GMT on 19 March from a strangulated hernia that cut off the blood supply to his heart. The trust has apologised for the distress and anxiety caused but said it remained under "enormous pressure". Read full story Source: 4 November 2022
  12. News Article
    Ambulance trusts should review their ability to respond to mass casualty incidents and press commissioners for any additional resources they need, the report into the Manchester Arena bombing has said. Only 7 of the 319 North West Ambulance Service Trust vehicles available on the night of the attack, in 2017, were able to deploy immediately, the report said. It said experts believed that “such a situation would almost inevitably be replicated if a similar incident were to occur again anywhere in the country”, given current resources and demand. Ambulance trusts are now hugely more stretched than in 2017, with response times having significantly lengthened due to lack of resources. The second volume of the report from the inquiry, chaired by Sir John Saunders, published today, is critical of the emergency services’ response to the bombing which killed 22 people. NWAS “failed to send sufficient paramedics into the City Room [an area adjoining the Arena]” and did not use available stretchers to remove casualties in a safe way, it says. A key role for managing the incident – that of ambulance intervention team commander – was not allocated for half an hour. But it also raised issues of ambulance capacity and availability for major incidents involving mass casualties. “Around the UK, ambulance services are always ’playing catch up,’” it said, with no spare frontline capacity. With demand doubling over the last 10 years, the inability to respond to such incidents is only going to get worse – and lives will be lost if they do not attend the scene quickly and in sufficient numbers, the report said. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 November 2022
  13. News Article
    Almost a million people waited at least half an hour for an ambulance after having a medical emergency such as a heart attack or stroke last year, NHS figures show. Ambulance crews responding to 999 calls in England took more than 30 minutes to reach patients needing urgent care a total of 905,086 times during 2019–20. Of those, 253,277 had to wait at least an hour, and 35,960 – the equivalent of almost 100 patients a day – waited for more than two hours. In addition to heart attacks and strokes, the figures cover patients who had sustained a serious injury or trauma or major burns, or had developed the potentially lethal blood-borne infection sepsis. Under NHS guidelines, ambulances are meant to arrive at incidents involving a medical emergency – known as category 2 calls – within 18 minutes. The Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, who obtained the figures using freedom of information laws, said: “It’s deeply shocking that such huge numbers of seriously ill patients have had to wait so long for an ambulance crew to arrive after a 999 call. It shows the incredible pressure our ambulance services were under even before this pandemic struck. “Patients suffering emergencies like a heart attack, stroke or serious injury need urgent medical attention, not to be left waiting for up to two hours for an ambulance to arrive. These worryingly long delays in an ambulance reaching a seriously ill or injured patient could have a major long-term impact on their health.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 August 2020
  14. News Article
    A teenager with a severe nut allergy died in part because of human error, a coroner has ruled. Shante Turay-Thomas, 18, had a severe reaction to eating a hazelnut. The inquest heard a series of failures meant that an ambulance took more than 40 minutes to arrive at her home in Wood Green, north London. Her mother Emma Turay, who said she felt "badly let down" by the NHS, wants an "allergy tsar" to be appointed to help prevent similar deaths. The inquest heard call staff for the NHS's 111 non-emergency number failed to appreciate the teenager's worsening condition was typical of a severe allergic reaction to nuts. A telephone recording of the 111 call, made by her mother, at 23:01 BST on Friday 14 September 2018, revealed how the 18-year-old could be heard in the background struggling to breathe. "My chest hurts, my throat is closing and I feel like I'm going to pass out," she said before asking her mother to check how long the ambulance would be, then adding: "I'm going to die." The inquest heard Ms Turay-Thomas had tried to use her auto-injector adrenaline pen, however it later emerged she had only injected a 300 microgram dose, rather than the 1,000 micrograms needed to stabilise her condition. It also emerged she was unaware of the need to use two shots for the most serious allergic reactions and had not received medical training after changing her medication delivery system from the EpiPen to a new Emerade device. The inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court was told an ambulance that was on its way to the patient had been rerouted because the call was incorrectly categorised as requiring only a category two response, rather than the more serious category one. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 January 2020
  15. News Article
    Ambulance chiefs are looking at alternative defibrillators after coroners highlighted confusion over how to correctly use their existing machines. London Ambulance Service (LAS) Trust has received two warnings from coroners since 2016 after the delayed use of Lifepak 15 defibrillators “significantly reduced” the chances of survival for patients, including a 15-year-old boy. Coroners found some paramedics were unaware the machines had to be switched from the default “manual” mode to an “automatic” setting. The first warning came after the death of teenager Najeeb Katende in October 2016. A report by coroner Edwin Buckett said the paramedic who arrived had started the defibrillator in manual mode and did not detect a heart rhythm that was appropriate for administering the device, so it was not used until an advanced paramedic arrived on scene 24 minutes later. The report stated the defibrillator had been started in manual mode but it needed to be switched to automatic to detect a shockable heart rhythm. The coroner warned LAS that further deaths could occur if action was not taken to prevent similar confusion. But another warning was issued to the LAS in March this year, following the death of 35-year-old Mitica Marin. Again, a coroner found the paramedic, who was on her first solo shift, had started the machine in manual mode and had not detected a shockable rhythm. It was suggested this caused a four minute delay in the shock being administered. Coroner Graeme Irvine said this was “not an isolated incident” for LAS and noted the trust had reviewed other cases of delayed defibrillation. They found that the defibrillator’s manual default setting was a “contributing factor” to the delays. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 August 2020
  16. News Article
    A dedicated team of 32 volunteers are hitting the roads across North Wales assisting the Welsh Ambulance Service in dealing with fallers. Based out of the Ambulance headquarters in St Asaph, the Community First Responder Falls Team was launched on 30 April this year and has already assisted almost 250 people. The team was created to use the talents and experience of the familiar Community First Responders (CFRs) who had to be stood down from their normal duties at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read the full article here.
  17. News Article
    Ambulance services have been urged to look at how suspected overdose and poisoning cases are prioritised after paramedics took 45 minutes to reach a woman with known mental health problems. Helen Sheath, 33, had been discharged from a mental health unit in early July last year and was still waiting for an outpatient appointment with a psychological assessment and treatment service when she took a fatal dose of sodium nitrate on 20 August. Her father called an ambulance at 6.20pm when she had locked herself in a bathroom and was threatening to take the sodium nitrate. But Bedfordshire and Luton senior coroner Emma Whitting said her father could not tell whether or not she had taken it, and that in view of her history of suicidal ideation, the call should have been treated as a category two – with an 18 minutes response target – rather than a category three incident. The first ambulance which was sent to her was diverted on route and it was only after a second call to the East of England Ambulance Service at 6.48pm, that the call was upgraded to category two – when the call handler selected a different set of questions, after being told she had ingested the chemical. A rapid response vehicle arrived at 7.05pm and the mental health street triage team attended six minutes later. Shortly afterwards she became acutely unwell and was taken to Bedford Hospital, where she received treatment but died shortly afterwards. In a prevention of future deaths report Ms Whitting said: “If the first call had been coded as a category two, it seems likely that the rapid response vehicle, mental health street triage team (and even possibly the double staffed ambulance) would have arrived on scene much earlier (potentially just before or just after Helen had ingested the sodium nitrate) which could potentially have altered the outcome.” The case comes just months after two other ambulance trusts were criticised in cases involving suspected or threatened overdoses. The prevention of future deaths report was sent to the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives and the emergency call prioritisation advisory group, which is run by NHS England. Neither would comment other than saying they would respond to the coroner. Read full story Source: HSJ, 15 June 2020
  18. News Article
    Some seriously ill COVID-19 patients in London may not have been taken to hospital by ambulance because of a system temporarily used to assess people, a BBC investigation suggests. Patients could have "become very sick or died at home" instead, a paramedic claimed. One family said they had to plead to get hospital care. Medical professionals use 'NEWS2', as one way of identifying patients at risk of deteriorating, a check normally used for sepsis patients. Under normal circumstances, ambulance teams would blue-light anyone with a score of five or above to hospital. But on 18 March, LAS workers were told to apply the NEWS2 check to suspected Covid patients and that many of those with a score up to seven could be "suitable for community care", even if there were issues with breathing rate, oxygen supply and consciousness. But one paramedic, who wanted to remain anonymous because she did not have permission to speak to the media, said she believed that as a result of the NEWS2 advice, crews went to patients "who may have been seen by ambulance before and then suddenly became very sick or even just dropped dead." Read full story Source: BBC News, 23 April 2020
  19. News Article
    The coronavirus crisis has led to a sharp rise in the number of seriously ill people dying at home because they are reluctant to call for an ambulance, doctors and paramedics have warned. Minutes of a remote meeting held by London A&E chiefs last week obtained by the Guardian reveal that dozens more people than usual are dying at home of a cardiac arrest – potentially related to coronavirus – each day before ambulance crews can reach them. And as the chair of the Royal College of GPs said that doctors were noticing a spike in the number of people dying at home, paramedics across the country said in interviews that they were attending more calls where patients were dead when they arrived. The minutes also reveal acute concern among senior medics that seriously ill patients are not going to A&E or dialling 999 because they are afraid or do not wish to be a burden. “People don’t want to go near hospital,” the document said. “As a result salvageable conditions are not being treated.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 16 April 2020
  20. News Article
    Ambulance staff are being put at risk by a lack of protective equipment to guard them against coronavirus, according to a trade union. GMB says its members are "scared" about their own safety and their families. The union claims one in five ambulance staff in London are off sick with coronavirus-related sickness. The government says hundreds of millions of protective items have been delivered to NHS staff around the country. According to the GMB Union, 679 frontline ambulance crew in the London Ambulance Service are off sick due to Covid-19-related sickness. Among those at work, some say they feel unprotected either because of a lack of or inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE). Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 April 2020
  21. News Article
    There is significant variation in ambulance response times to patients with serious conditions such as suspected strokes or heart attacks, which is not fully explained by how rural an area is, an HSJ analysis has revealed. The exclusive analysis represents the first time ambulance performance for category two calls, which have an 18-minute response time target, have been broken down to clinical commissioning group level. Category two, known as emergency calls, covers a wide range of conditions, including suspected stroke and heart attacks (except cardiac arrests), major burns and epileptic seizures. They account for well over half of ambulance responses. The findings — described as “alarming” by the Stroke Association — lay bare the incredibly long waits which are usually hidden, because average waiting time data is usually published for ambulance trusts, which cover far larger areas than CCGs. Mark MacDonald, Deputy Director of Policy at the Stroke Association, said: “It is alarming to hear that in some cases ambulance staff are taking over an hour to reach patients because when it comes to stroke, being assessed quickly and then, if necessary, transferred to hospital, is really important.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 5 March 2020
  22. News Article
    The Streatham terrorist attack has again highlighted one of the most difficult decisions the emergency services face – deciding when it is safe to treat wounded people. In the aftermath of the stabbings by Sudesh Amman, a passer-by who helped a man lying on the pavement bleeding claimed ambulance crews took 30 minutes to arrive. The London Ambulance Service (LAS) said the first medics arrived in four minutes, but waited at the assigned rendezvous point until the Metropolitan police confirmed it was safe to move in. Last summer, the inquest into the London Bridge attack heard it took three hours for paramedics to reach some of the wounded. Prompt treatment might have saved the life of French chef Sebastian Belanger, who received CPR from members of the public and police officers for half an hour. A LAS debriefing revealed paramedics’ frustration at not being deployed sooner. A group of UK and international experts in delivering medical care during terrorist attacks have highlighted alternative approaches in the BMJ. In Paris in 2015, the integration of doctors with specialist police teams enabled about 100 wounded people in the Bataclan concert hall to be triaged and evacuated 30 minutes before the terrorists were killed. The experts writing in the BMJ believe the UK approach would have delayed any medical care reaching these victims for three hours. These are perilously hard judgment calls. Policymakers and commanders on the scene have to balance the likelihood that long delays in intervening will lead to more victims dying from their injuries against the increased risk to the lives of medical staff who are potentially putting themselves in the line of fire by entering the so-called 'hot zone'. First responders themselves need to be at the forefront of this debate. As the people who have the experience, face the risks and want more than anyone to save as many lives as possible, their leadership and insights are vital. In the wake of the Streatham attack the government is looking at everything from sentencing policy to deradicalisation. Deciding how best to save the wounded needs equal priority in the response to terrorism. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 February 2020
  23. News Article
    Concerns have been raised that NHS ambulance staff are being "silenced" over bullying allegations. Hundreds of East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) employees reported bullying in 2018, while 28 non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have been issued since 2016. The GMB union said the figures showed a "heavy-handed culture". The service said it took bullying and harassment "extremely seriously" and had policies to prevent such behaviour. EEAS faced scrutiny in November when it emerged three members of staff died in 11 days. One, Luke Wright, 24, is believed to have taken his own life. An independent investigation, which dealt in part with bullying claims, has been carried out with the results reported to the trust in January. The 28 NDAs had been made in cases where bullying, harassment or abuse by colleagues had been reported, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These involved an individual agreement, often with a payment, which prevented the person speaking about their case. In the latest staff survey from 2018, 23% of staff reported bullying, up from 21% in the previous year. The GMB said NDAs were seen as a "method of silencing rather than resolving" and called on the trust to discuss more meaningful ways of dealing with problems. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 February 2020
  24. News Article
    Heart attack, stroke and burns victims are among the seriously ill and injured patients waiting over an hour for an ambulance to arrive in England and Wales, a BBC investigation shows. The delays for these 999 calls - meant to be reached in 18 minutes on average - put lives at risk, experts say. The problems affect one in 16 "emergency" cases in England - with significant delays reported in Wales. NHS bosses blamed rising demand and delays handing over patients at A&E. Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association, said patients were being "let down badly at their moment of greatest need" and getting a quick response could be "a matter of life or death". She said the delays were "undoubtedly" related to the sustained underfunding of the NHS. Read full story Source: BBC News, 29 January 2020
  25. News Article
    A coroner has criticised an ambulance trust after it took nearly four hours to reach a woman who had taken an overdose. Taking the unusual step of publishing a prevention of future deaths report before an inquest had concluded, coroner for Gateshead and South Tyneside Terence Carney said “the real and imminent danger of [the deceased Maureen Wharton’s] admitted actions does not appear to have been appreciated and readily reacted to in a meaningful way”. Ms Wharton called North East Ambulance Service Trust to say she was dying of cancer and had taken prescribed drugs, including an opioid-based medication and sleeping pills. She threatened to take more and later called back, appearing drowsier. North East Ambulance Service graded the 61-year-old’s call as “category three”, which meant she should have received a response within two hours. It took three hours and 45 minutes for the ambulance service to access her flat, by which time she was already dead. Mr Carney pointed out no attempts had been made to identify family or other support for her, or to contact other agencies which could have responded. The inquest into her death is expected to conclude later this year. In a statement, NEAS said it has already made changes to safeguard patients in mental health cases, including implementing greater oversight in its control rooms, improving call transfers to crisis teams, mapping available local mental health services, introducing more staff training, and telling patients in a crisis but not at risk of physical harm about other, more appropriate, services. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 14 January 2020
×
×
  • Create New...