Ambulance wait led dad to drive baby to hospital

ATERRIFIED father drove his seven-day-old baby to hospital after 999 operators could not tell him if an ambulance had been dispatched to his home.

The Bristol man, whose daughter was having a seizure, anxiously waited for around 15 minutes before taking the decision to use his own car.

It later emerged that no ambulance had been dispatched to his home nine weeks ago.

The incident has prompted a national review by the NHS into the information 999 callers are provided.

Policy dictates that operators cannot say a specific ambulance has been deployed as they cannot guarantee its arrival due to the possibility of it being diverted to more serious callout.

Speaking before the board of directors at South Western Ambulance Service, the father, named only as Martin, described how he was left anxiously pacing up and down his driveway waiting on an ambulance.

Then, after 999 operators could not confirm an ambulance had been dispatched and a 15-minute wait, he drove his daughter to Southmead Hospital, before she was conveyed to St Michael’s Hospital.

He said: “After [first] calling 999 I waited five to 10 minutes and nothing came so I asked a direct question [to operator] “is an ambulance coming?”

“The lady had an ambiguous answer.”

He continued: “Then after another five to 10 minutes, I said “look, I want to take my child to hospital now”.

“I was transferred to another colleague, [they] took me though a set of questions and decided I could go.”

The child was suffering from meningitis and after several weeks in hospital is back at home and well. But the father filed a complaint and was invited to share his experience with ambulance service directors at a meeting on Wednesday.

He said: “Our experience was that there was a real lack of communication.

“I was told at the end of the call that no ambulance had been called. We were very disappointed.”

Ken Wenman, chief executive of the ambulance service, said the case had prompted a review headed by NHS England’s national clinical director for urgent care, Professor Jonathan Benger.

Mr Wenman told the man: “Your experience has been a catalyst for some work. It doesn’t feel right that we cannot tell you when you are calling 999 if an ambulance has been dispatched.”

He also said the 999 call operators were not the people in charge of dispatching the ambulance.

Dr Andy Smith, executive medical director for the service, welcomed the review.

He said: “If you are waiting for help you want to know it is on its way.”

The service said that the questions asked about a baby patient by the operator were also sometimes inappropriate, and this would also be investigated for improvements.

The incident was first logged as a category three callout, one which is not immediately life-threatening and has an ambulance response time of up to 120 minutes, before being upgraded to a category two, which has a response time target of 18 minutes.