More patients surviving despite response time targets being missed

● Ambulance bosses defend new system of prioritising patients

More people in life-threatening conditions are surviving despite the Scottish Ambulance Service failing to meet response-time targets, MSPS have been told.

Ambulance bosses have defended changes to how they respond to emergency calls and argued that more people in life-threatening conditions now survive despite the targets being missed.

A new system of identifying the risk to patients and how ambulance staff prioritised their calls was introduced in 2016 and the eight-minute response-time targets were abolished for all but the mosturgent cases.

In areas where targets remain, Scottish Ambulance Service figures given to Holyrood’s Health Committee revealed that 61.5 per cent of all life-threatening calls and 71.2 per cent of cardiac arrests were responded to within eight minutes.

Their respective targets are 75 per cent and 80 per cent.

“The proportion of eightminute response times have reduced significantly,” the committee convener Lewis Macdonald said, adding: “The targets for life-threatening responses are not being achieved.”

However, the medical director of the Scottish Ambulance Service, Dr James Ward, defended the new system of prioritising patients.

Dr Ward explained that the model is “based on a huge amount of data and evidence

0 A system of prioritising calls was introduced in 2016 and the 8-minute response time was abolished for all but the most urgent cases

around the requirements of patients”.

He said: “For the codes that go into our highest category, we know that these people are sick and in immediate lifethreatening circumstances.

“If you align your response to accurately identify these patients, it gives you the best opportunity to save lives.

“When we set off at this we had no idea what would happen in terms of 24-hour and 30-day survival, but what we’ve seen in the first year – from the old system to DR JAMES WARD

Scottish Ambulance Service medical director

the new system – is a 43 per cent increase in 30-day survival.”

He added: “The eight minute target has lost its relevance to clinicians within the system.

“We get to the sickest people as quickly as we possibly can and that’s actually when the role of the paramedic begins.

Asked by the convener “whether the Scottish Ambulance Service remains committed” to the eight-minute target, Dr Ward said: “Absolutely. We are committed to trying our best to deliver

every target that has been agreed as part of our delivery plan.”

Specialist paramedic Donna Hendry said that rising waiting times have seen increased abuse aimed at staff, impacted on morale and raised questions about why paramedics were not sent to certain jobs.

But she added: “We’ve got to bear in mind the bigger picture as we don’t know what other calls are coming in.”

“We get to the sickest people as quickly as we possibly can and that’s actually when the role of the paramedic begins”