The BBC has reported that ambulance services across the UK are struggling to reach seriously ill and injured patients quickly enough.
Ambulance waiting times were the subject of debate in the House of Commons on 17 October 2016. The Minister of State for Health, Mr Philip Dunne informed the Commons that the Government are backing the NHS's future plans with an extra £10 billion by 2020/21. Some of this funding will be used for the ambulance service which is struggling to cope under increasing pressure. In some areas of the country for example the south-west, the number of calls to the ambulance service has risen by more than 11% compared to the same time last year.
The Care Quality Commission inspected the ambulance service in June of this year and recently published the report of its findings. Overall the ambulance trust has been awarded a rating of “requires improvement”.
Under the ambulance response program, NHS England is exploring ways in which to change responses to emergency calls by the ambulance service. The first element of the ambulance response program is “dispatch on disposition” which was first piloted in London. This gives call handlers more time to make a clinical assessment of a 999 call in order to ascertain whether the emergency is immediately life threatening thereby ensuring that the most appropriate response, based on clinical need, is sent to each incident. The freedom of information request by the BBC shows that only one ambulance service, the Welsh ambulance service is the only one in the UK hitting the eight minute target to respond to life threatening calls. Interestingly, the Welsh ambulance service reduced the number of cases it classed as an emergency from a third to about 5% in order to prioritise the most critical calls. Scotland introduced a similar system last week and England has started piloting its own version in three areas this year.
In the absence of further government funding, the reclassification of the most immediately life-threatening cases may enable ambulance services to reach critical calls within the eight minute target. This means that some road traffic accident victims, stroke patients, people having fits and those experiencing chest pain are unlikely to be considered life-threatening. This however, will not address the fact that the BBC found over 500,000 hours of ambulance crews time in the UK was lost last year waiting for accident and emergency staff to be free to hand over their patients to. The BBC estimates that this is a rise of 52% in two years.
Patients are finding it increasingly difficult to see their GP’s and some are contacting the ambulance service when alternative treatment at walk in centres, pharmacies and minor injury units maybe more appropriate. Perhaps the Government should consider a Nationwide Public Health Campaign to educate the public about how and when to use the 999 service.
Rebecca Thomas is a Director of Clinical Negligence at Duncan Lewis. Rebecca has over 20 years’ experience in her field and represents clients in a wide range of cases including claims involving cosmetic and dental negligence, surgical and orthopaedic injuries arising from delay, misdiagnosis or negligent spinal surgery, gastrointestinal and ophthalmic surgery.
Duncan Lewis’ broad clinical negligence practice handles a vast array of claims, from accident and emergency failures to GP negligence claims, to misdiagnosed fractures to wrongful death matters. Duncan Lewis’ Clinical Negligence team has significant experience acting in claims for children and adults who have suffered profound and permanent brain, spinal or neurological injuries and associated disabilities as a consequence of failings in medical care in both NHS and private hospitals. They also act for clients in cases arising from obstetric, neo-natal, paediatric, anaesthetic, neurological, spinal, surgical, cardiac and emergency care and consequent disability resulting from these.