Lengthy waiting times ‘letting down patients’

Councillors call for evidence to back case against ambulance service

AMBULANCE response times in the Staffordshire Moorlands are causing major concerns.

At last week’s meeting of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council’s health overview and scrutiny panel it was highlighted that patients were being made to wait hours for an emergency response.

It comes after community ambulance stations were closed and rapid response vehicles in Leek, Cheadle and Biddulph were taken away by West Midlands Ambulance Service.

In a question to the head of communities at the council, Councillor Linda Malyon said: “I understand that residents are still waiting a number of hours for ambulances to respond to calls.

“I am aware of waiting times of seven hours and five hours for two recent cases. When will this change for the better?

“One person had a head injury after falling in the bath and was bleeding profusely.

“They were told the ambulance would take seven hours. The family had to take the patient to hospital.

“In another incident a lady was left lying on the floor for five hours, no-one dared to move her. I can mention more incidents.

“The system is letting down patients.”

In reply, Councillor Mike Bowen said: “As members will be aware the district council has no direct role in the delivery of the ambulance service and the formal scrutiny of this service lies with the health and care overview and scrutiny panel at Staffordshire County Council.

“Given the concerns expressed it would be useful if councillors could provide their views about the performance of the ambulance service.

“We can then gather this feedback and forward this to the county council and suggest that this service be scrutinised further.

“The ambulance service does not take any notice of us. They do not have to respond to the electorate.

“This is an unsatisfactory situation. We would like people to let us know of any delay in response times so we can forward the data onto the county council.”

Councillor John Jones, who is a retired paramedic, said: “The ambulance service is blaming it on the hospitals. They are using it as an excuse because they have taken away the rural cover.

“We put in a Freedom of Information request for Biddulph last year and have just received it.

“We know how good the service was and now it shows how bad it is. It is probably worse for Leek and the rural areas like Longnor and Flash.

“It shows that rural areas are better with Rapid Response Vehicles, and this is what we are saying.

“We need evidence and urge people to send it in.”

Councillor Lyn Swindlehurst said; “The ambulance service knows the waiting hours are excessive, so why are they not making a difference?”

Councillor Tony Holmes added: “The ambulance service has failed on all its targets. Take the issue to Staffordshire County Council.”

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “The level of delays the Trust faces waiting to handover patients at Royal Stoke has a huge impact on our ability to get to patients quickly.

“March is on track to be the worst month ever; it is the equivalent of trying to work with 20 per cent fewer ambulances in Staffordshire.

“We are working with all local partners across the health and care system to improve the situation.

“For example, that work means Staffordshire has the lowest conveyance rate in the country with the ambulance service now taking fewer patients to hospital than it did three years ago. Less than half of patients are now taken to hospital.

“The whole of the NHS remains under severe pressure, but our staff and volunteers continue to work tirelessly to respond as soon as we can, though we absolutely accept that some patients are waiting far longer than we would want.

“Shutting the Community Ambulance Stations meant more ambulance staff are on the road answering calls to patients than would have been the case had the seldom used buildings still been open.

“We continue to take further steps to improve the situation such as increasing the number of frontline and control room staff.”

On the issue of Rapid Response Vehicles, the ambulance service said: “The independent reviews of ambulance services by both the National Audit Office and Lord Carter showed very clearly that sending an ambulance rather than a car is inherently more effective as the one vehicle can deal with every situation; treating and discharging the patient at the scene or transporting them, be that to A&E or another care setting, something a car cannot.

“A good example of this would be a stroke patient; an RRV might get there quickly but if the patient was Fast positive (implying a stroke), what they actually needed was an ambulance to take them to a hyper-acute stroke unit for immediate care.

“Increasing the number of cars would simply result in it taking longer for patients to get to hospital.

“At the time we removed the cars from areas such as Biddulph, the data showed very clearly that they saw very few patients in the town.

“We will always send the nearest available resource to each patient which meant that the car would be used in a wide geographical area - to suggest that having a car based in the town would improve response times is untrue.”