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Found 321 results
  1. News Article
    The London Ambulance Service (LAS) failing on diversity and must implement specific targets for improvements, its leadership has been warned. According to LAS data, just 20% of the workforce is from a Black, Asian or from a minority ethnic background despite almost half of the capital’s population (46.2%) being made up of non-white communities. Of that 20%, 40.9% are in the lowest paid roles, compared to 15.9% who are in the highest wage bands, according to the LAS’ Integrated Performance report. The LAS is in the process of developing a new strategy to help attract more diverse staff, which will be published early next year. Research shows that ethnic minority groups suffer disproportionately higher levels of inadequate ambulance care due to a combination of issues such as a lack of cultural awareness among professionals, language and communication difficulties and a limited understanding of how the healthcare system operates for some minority groups. Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 February 2023
  2. News Article
    Thousands of severely disabled children's lives are at risk because of long waits for ambulances, doctors and other experts have warned. Emergency care is a vital part of their everyday lives, the British Academy of Childhood Disability says. Almost 100,000 children have life-limiting conditions or need regular ventilator support in the UK. They often rely on ambulances as part of their healthcare plan, because their condition can become life-threatening in an instant. Dr Toni Wolff, who chairs the British Academy of Childhood Disability, told BBC News some families with severely disabled children had "what are essentially high-dependency units" of medical equipment at home. "As part of their healthcare plan, we would normally say, 'If the child starts to deteriorate, call for an ambulance and it will be there within 10 or 20 minutes,'" she said. "Now, we can't give that reassurance." Despite their child being classed as a priority, parents have told BBC News they face the difficult decision to wait for an ambulance or take them, often in a life-threatening condition, to hospital themselves - a risk because of the huge amounts of equipment needed to keep them alive, Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 February 2023
  3. News Article
    A new way of screening ambulance calls is to be introduced across England in an effort to improve response times. NHS England is asking ambulance crews to review which emergency calls other than those classed as immediately life threatening can be treated elsewhere. The calls - known as category two - include emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes. But the category also covers some that may not need such a fast response, such as burns and severe headaches. About 40% of these lower priority calls classed as category two by call handlers will now receive callbacks from a doctor, nurse or paramedic to see whether there is an alternative to sending an ambulance. In trials in London and across the West Midlands, nearly half of those receiving a callback were advised to go instead to an urgent treatment clinic, their GP or a pharmacist. NHS England is now asking the other eight ambulance services in England to adopt the approach. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 February 2023
  4. News Article
    A&E waiting times have deteriorated so much this winter that at some hospitals in England more than half of patients have had to wait more than four hours. BBC analysis of data for December and January shows Hull University Hospitals, Wye Valley and Shrewsbury and Telford were worst for A&E waits. The best trust out of the 107 providing data, Northumbria Healthcare, had fewer than 10% waiting more than four hours. NHS England said plans were being put in place to support struggling trusts. Source: BBC, 13 February 2023 Read full story
  5. News Article
    Emergency patients are being left open to abuse when they are at their most vulnerable because of a lack of vetting of ambulance workers, watchdog officials have warned. One watchdog official warned that abusers would even seek out work as a paramedic because it provided an “attractive environment” for exploitation. Figures show that dozens of ambulance workers have faced action over sexual assault in the past two years, while paramedics account for one in three cases of tribunal action against care professionals. But one survivors’ group warned the figures were just the “tip of the iceberg”. Paramedics who have been struck off in the past two years include one who performed a sex act in front of a patient, while another was handed a suspended prison sentence for possessing thousands of images of child pornography. Helen Vine, special adviser to the Care Quality Commission, told a recent webinar: “There is a small proportion of the population who are seeking to abuse our patients and the ambulance can be an attractive environment for that type of individual. One of the reasons for this is the ambulance sector is predominantly lone working … and ambulance services offer privileged often unsupervised access to patients who can be very vulnerable". She said the lack of checks meant offenders were able to move between providers, adding: “They test the waters and their behaviours ... if they are challenged, they will move on, however, if they are not challenged then they can hide in plain sight, and they are wearing a trusted uniform and given responsible access to that patient group. Read full story Source: The Independent, 12 February 2023
  6. News Article
    Ambulance staff will need to respond to category 2 calls during strike action under new government proposals. The Department of Health and Social Care has launched a consultation on minimum service levels in ambulance services. It comes as industrial action continues across the NHS and as legislation to ensure minimum services levels in key industries during strikes is making its way through Parliament. The consultation document read: “Our proposal is that calls classed as life-threatening and emergency incidents would always receive an appropriate clinical response when there is strike action. “In England, currently, these calls are classified as category 1 (immediately life-threatening) and category 2 (emergency) calls… “On strike action days, some workers would continue their work to ensure that these calls can be answered and responded to appropriately to protect the life and health of patients.” The proposals added services must also have “adequate capacity and resourcing” in call control rooms, to ensure all emergency 999 calls to ambulance services were answered. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 13 February 2023
  7. News Article
    Ambulance crews reached emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes one hour quicker in January than December in England, figures show. They took 32 minutes on average, compared with more than 90 the month before. The target is 18 minutes but January's average was the quickest for 19 months. A&E waiting times also improved, with just over a quarter of patients waiting longer than four hours - down from more than a third in December. But Society for Acute Medicine president Dr Tim Cooksley said wait times remained "intolerable". And he highlighted the waits the sickest and most frail were facing for a bed on a ward. Nearly four out of every 10 patients waited over four hours on trolleys and in corridors. "The fundamental problem remains a significant shortage of workforce, leading to woefully inadequate inpatient bed and social-care capacity," Dr Cooksley added. Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 February 2023
  8. News Article
    Some ambulance trusts are not sending paramedics to up to around a quarter of their most serious calls, according to figures obtained by HSJ. HSJ submitted data requests to all 10 English ambulance trusts after the Care Quality Commission raised concerns about the proportion of category one calls not being attended by a paramedic at South Central Ambulance Service Foundation Trust. The regulator said in a report published in August last year that between November 2021 and April 2022 around 9% of the trust’s category one calls were not attended by a paramedic. Inspectors said this meant some patients “did not receive care or treatment that met their needs because there were not appropriately qualified staff making the decisions and providing treatment.” But data obtained via freedom of information requests reveals other ambulance trusts had far lower proportions of category one calls attended by paramedics than the South Central service last year. Read full story Source: HSJ, 2 February 2023
  9. News Article
    Ambulance crews in the North East frequently responded to emergencies without access to life-saving drugs, a damning inspection report has found. The study of North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NEAS) concluded patients were potentially put at risk by the poor management of medicines. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) found a deterioration of services and rated NEAS's urgent care as "inadequate". In response, NEAS said it had faced a year of "unprecedented pressures". The damaging assessment follows the launch of a full independent NHS review into numerous "tragic failings" involving patients. Announcing the review, the then health secretary Sajid Javid said he was "deeply concerned" about claims NEAS had covered up mistakes. Whistleblowers have told Newsnight multiple deaths were not investigated properly because information was not always provided to coroners and families. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 February 2023
  10. News Article
    Thousands of ambulance staff across five services in England - London, Yorkshire, the South West, North East and North West - will walk out on Friday 10 February, Unison says. It means strikes over pay will now be happening across the NHS every day next week, apart from Wednesday. Life-threatening 999 calls will be attended to but others may not be. Downing Street says the continuing industrial action will concern the public. The NHS's biggest day of industrial action is set to happen on 6 February, when many nurses and ambulance crews across England and Wales will be on strike. Unison says the government must stop "pretending the strikes will simply go away" and act decisively to end the dispute by improving pay. The union warned that unless the government had a "major rethink" over NHS pay, and got involved in "actual talks" with unions, it would announce strike dates running into March. The government says the above-inflation pay rises requested are unaffordable. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 January 2023
  11. News Article
    Thousands of extra hospital beds and hundreds of ambulances will be rolled out in England this year in a bid to tackle the long emergency care delays. The 5,000 new beds will boost capacity by 5%, while the ambulance fleet will increase by 10% with 800 new vehicles. Details of the £1bn investment will be set out later in a joint government and NHS England two-year blueprint. Questions have also been raised about how the extra resources will be staffed - 1 in 10 posts in the NHS is vacant. The government believes the measures, which will be introduced from April, will help the NHS to start getting closer to its waiting time targets. It has set goals that by March 2024: 76% of A&E patients will be dealt with in four hours. Currently fewer than 70% are. The official target is 95% An average response time of 30 minutes for emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes. In December patients waited over 90. The official target is 18. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said cutting NHS waiting times was one of his five main priorities. Read full story Source: BBC News, 30 January 2023
  12. News Article
    Record numbers of patients suffered severe harm last month because they spent so long in the back of ambulances waiting to get into A&E, new NHS figures reveal. An estimated 57,000 people in England “experienced potential harm”, of whom 6,000 were exposed to “severe harm”, in December – both the largest numbers on record – because they had to wait at least an hour to be handed over to hospital staff, according to NHS ambulance service bosses. The health union Unison, which represents many ambulance staff, said the data showed that the ambulance service “is barely coping” with the huge number of calls it is receiving. A senior ambulance service official said the high volume of patients being put at risk because they had to wait outside A&E so long before receiving medical attention, and paramedics being prevented from answering other 999 calls, was “horrific” and “astronomical”. He added: “These figures also show that whatever NHS England say they are doing to try to resolve this huge problem, it clearly isn’t working.” Martin Flaherty, Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) managing director, said: “Our December 2022 data for handover delays at hospital emergency departments shows some of the worst figures we have recorded to date and clearly underlines that not enough is being done to reduce and eradicate these dangerous, unsafe and harmful occurrences.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 January 2023
  13. News Article
    A record number of patients suffered “severe harm” as a result of ambulance delays in December, soaring by nearly 50 per cent in just one month as the NHS crisis deepened. Almost 6,000 suffered permanent or long-term harm due to long waits to hand over patients outside A&Es – up from just over 4,000 in November. A further 14,000 patients were likely to have suffered “moderate harm”, an analysis by The Independent of NHS ambulance data and estimates of harm by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) found. This includes incidents that resulted in patients needing further treatment or procedures, the cancelling of treatment, or being transferred to another area. Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said the figures are a “worrying reminder of the huge pressure the NHS is under”. She said: “Trust leaders are doing everything they can to provide patients with safe, high-quality care but they know patients face lengthy handover delays far too often, contributing to avoidable harm.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 January 2023
  14. News Article
    Ambulance workers are to join nurses in taking strike action on 6 February in England and Wales in what will be the biggest NHS walkout in this dispute. The GMB announced four new stoppages for ambulance staff - one of which coincides with a nurses' strike date. It is the first time both ambulance staff and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have acted on the same day. GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison said: "Ambulance workers are angry. Our message to the government is clear - talk pay now." The walkouts by staff including paramedics, call handlers and support workers in seven of the 10 English ambulance services along with the national Welsh service will take place on 6 and 20 February, and 6 and 20 March. Under trade union laws, both unions will have to provide emergency cover. But it raises the prospect of urgent 999 calls for falls not being responded to, and a huge chunk of pre-planned hospital care such as hernia repair, hip replacements or outpatient clinics not being done. Read full story Source: BBC News, 18 January 2023
  15. News Article
    An acute trust chief executive has criticised the lack of communication during last month’s nursing strike, warning that he and other accountable officers could face manslaughter charges if patients are put in danger by decisions made by senior colleagues elsewhere in the system. Matthew Hopkins told a board meeting that Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s emergency department was “pushed to the extreme” on 20 December, with 176 people squeezed into a facility originally built for 50. He said that without warning from regional colleagues, an additional 18 people were brought in to the hospital by the ambulance service and ended up in corridors, at which point the trust declared a critical incident. The chief executive officer said he wanted to put on record an apology to staff for the incident, adding that he was “not aware” of the situation until it unfolded. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 January 2023
  16. News Article
    The health secretary said "voluntary arrangements" for emergency cover during recent ambulance strikes could not "ensure patient and public safety". In a letter to the GMB, Steve Barclay acknowledged unions that walked out had agreed to answer the most serious category one 999 calls. But he said the lack of cover for category two calls, including strokes, in some areas put lives at risk. The GMB has accused the government of "demonising" its striking workers. In response, Mr Barclay wrote on Sunday that he recognised the right to strike and accepted "that a certain amount of disruption is inherent to any strike". He said he "greatly" valued the "vital work ambulance workers do" but criticised the "volatile" assurances given to him about cover by trade unions during December's industrial action. The government's anti-strike bill is due to be considered by MPs again on Monday. The legislation would set minimum service levels for fire, ambulance and rail services during industrial action and could leave unions at risk of legal action if they fail to comply. Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 January 2023
  17. News Article
    Patients with emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes in England had to wait more than 90 minutes on average for an ambulance at the end of 2022. It came after a sharp deterioration in 999 response times in December - they were nearly twice as bad as November. Record worst waits were also recorded for life-threatening cardiac arrests, while A&E waits of over four-hours reached their highest level ever. Patient groups warned the delays would be leading to real harm. Combined, the data - released by NHS England - represents the worst-ever set of emergency care figures since modern records began in 2004. The figures show: Average waits of more than 90 minutes to reach emergency calls such as heart attacks - five times longer than the target time - with waits of over 150 minutes in some regions. Response times for the highest priority calls, such as cardiac arrests, taking close to 11 minutes - 4 minutes longer than they should. More than a third of patients in A&E waiting longer than 4 hours. One in seven patients waiting more than 12 hours for a bed on a ward when they need to be admitted. But there has been some progress with the waiting list for routine treatment falling slightly, to 7.19 million by the end of November. Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 January 2023
  18. News Article
    Ambulance bosses have apologised to the family of a man who died after he had a heart attack but no ambulance came. Martin Clark, 68, started suffering with chest pains at his home in East Sussex on 18 November - before any strike action started in the NHS. His family rang three times for an ambulance and after waiting 45 minutes drove him in their car to hospital. When they arrived, the father of five went into cardiac arrest and, despite receiving medical attention, died. Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said cases such as the Clarks' were "incredibly distressing". "The difference between life and death can be a matter of minutes when someone is having a heart attack or stroke," she said. "Extreme delays to emergency heart and stroke care cannot become a new normal. Healthcare staff are doing all they can—but there aren't enough of them and many will be working in difficult conditions without fit-for-purpose facilities." Read full story Source: BBC News
  19. News Article
    An investigation by The Independent has revealed that the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E for treatment has exceeded 50,000 a week for the first time. Leaked NHS data shows that last month as many as one in eight patients faced a “trolley wait”—the time between attending A&E and being admitted—longer than 12 hours, as the health service comes under ever greater strain. Sources across the country told The Independent that hospitals are having to “squeeze” patients into spaces other than normal wards or A&E, with no direct oxygen lines. Meanwhile patients wait for hours in ambulances outside emergency departments. Read full story Source: The Independent, 11 January 2023
  20. News Article
    Ambulance staff will take part in their second day of strike action this winter on Wednesday 11 January. Alongside paramedics, call-centre staff will walk out across England and Wales in the dispute over pay. These workers play a vital role, taking calls from the public and assigning ambulance crews. An ambulance dispatcher at the North West Ambulance Service, who wishes to stay anonymous, has described working amid the extreme pressures of this winter. They said, "The thought of going in and having to manage those calls just fills me with absolute dread. I have seen people leave the ambulance service - they have had enough. We are physically and mentally exhausted." Most frustrating, the dispatcher says, is the number of crews stuck outside hospital waiting to hand patients over to accident-and-emergency staff. In the last week of 2022, more than 40% of crews in England had waits of more than 30 minutes - it should take 15. Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 January 2023
  21. News Article
    Hours lost to ambulance handover delays, and the numbers of ambulances waiting more than an hour outside hospitals hit new highs in the week after Christmas. Data published this morning by NHS England revealed nearly 55,000 hours were lost to delays between 26 December and 1 January and 18,720 ambulances had to wait more than an hour to handover patients as emergency departments struggled, with many trusts declaring critical incidents. The number of hour-plus delays followed previous years’ trend of a slight dip in the week leading up to Christmas followed by an acceleration afterwards. However, levels this year were more than twice those seen in 2021 and three times those of the previous two years. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 6 January 2023
  22. News Article
    The extent of the gridlock in hospitals over Christmas has been revealed, with data in England showing record numbers of ambulances delayed dropping off patients at A&E. More than 40% of crews were forced to wait at least half an hour to hand over patients in the week up to 1 January. That is the highest level since records began a decade ago. But there is hope pressures could soon start easing, with flu and Covid admissions dropping last week. But the UK Health Security Agency is warning it is too early to say whether the flu season - the worst in a decade - has peaked, because reporting lags over the festive period may have affected the data. And Matthew Taylor, of the NHS Confederation, which represents hospitals, said wards were still incredibly full, which was creating delays in A&E and for ambulances. He said hospitals were facing "crisis conditions" that were presenting a risk to patients. Read full story Source: BBC News, 5 January 2023
  23. News Article
    The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is investigating whether a delayed response contributed to the deaths of eight people in recent weeks. All eight deaths occurred between 12 December and the start of January. The NIAS is treating four of the deaths as serious adverse incidents, which is defined as an incident that led to unintended or unexpected harm. The remaining four deaths are being investigated to see whether they meet that criteria. The patients' identities have not been disclosed, but it is understood one of the eight people was a man who waited more than nine hours for an ambulance in mid-December. The man's condition deteriorated and he died before paramedics arrived. The delays are a cause of "great concern," but there is "no end in sight to the pressures we are facing," according to the ambulance service's medical director Nigel Ruddell. He said the ambulance service conducts an internal review whenever "there is a delayed response to the call and a poor outcome from the call" to see whether delays contributed to a death. "That process involves liaising with the family and being open and clear with them about what happened on the day - whether it was because of pressures and demand on the day or whether there was something that, potentially, we could have done better." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 January 2022
  24. News Article
    When Steve Parsons's grandfather collapsed at his Monmouthshire home, his family immediately dialled 999. However when they were told there were no ambulances available, they had to take measures into their own hands. In desperation, Mr Parsons drove and then carried the 83-year-old, who had suffered a cardiac arrest, into the Grange Hospital near Cwmbran, Torfaen. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) and Welsh Ambulance Service Trust (WAST) admitted the incident did not match the service they wished to offer - but said it was indicative of the "unprecedented" pressures both organisations were under. Mr Parsons said: "It was horrible. They're on the phone, you're there and he's grey in the face and looks horrendous. You just panic." By the time Mr Parsons drove to the hospital, his grandfather had gone into cardiac arrest. He then carried his relative on his shoulder across the car park "yelling for help". A passing nurse heard his calls and was able to help save the 83-year-old's life using CPR. His grandfather is now recovering at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny, but Mr Parsons said his family has been traumatised. "It makes me feel angry," said the 31-year-old. "If my grandfather had that ambulance, had that oxygen, I fully believe he wouldn't have gone into cardiac arrest and my family wouldn't have gone through what they've gone through these past seven days." Read full story Source: BBC News, 4 January 2023
  25. News Article
    Paramedics will only wait with patients for 45 minutes before leaving them on a trolley in A&E, one ambulance trust has said. One in five ambulances are waiting at least an hour outside accident and emergency departments to hand over patients, the latest data show, despite NHS standards stating it should only be 15 minutes. Now, London Ambulance Service (LAS) leaders have told hospitals their staff will only remain with patients for a maximum of 45 minutes for handover due to “the significant amount of time being lost” waiting in A&E departments. A leaked letter, seen by ITV News, from the LAS said: "From January 3 we are asking that any patients waiting for 45 minutes for handover... are handed over immediately to ED (emergency department) staff allowing the ambulance clinicians to leave and respond to the next patient waiting in the community. "If the patient is clinically stable the ambulance clinicians will ensure the patient is on a hospital trolley or wheelchair/chair and approach the nurse in charge of the emergency department to notify them that the patient is being left in the care of the hospital and handover the patient." The email added that if the patient was not clinically stable, ambulance crews would stay with the patient until handover is achieved but added that the clinical responsibility for the patient lied with the hospital. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 3 January 2023
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