THE CENTRAL AND WEST WALES AMBULANCE SERVICE already has one of the UK’s worst response time averages, arriving at the scene of an incident within eight minutes only 47.8% of the time.  Now the Regional Director of the ambulance service has taken firm and positive steps to …… make their response times even worse.

The director, Richard Lee has instructed the dispatchers that they will not dispatch any ambulance while the crew is on their “meal break,” even if the medics want to be available.  A health trust spokesman said, “Ambulance crews are entitled to an uninterrupted break during their shift in line with the UK-wide NHS terms and conditions of service for non-medical staff.”

The County Times reports from the medics interviewed:

“Can you imagine a road accident or a cardiac arrest happening in Welshpool and control having to ring a crew to attend from Llanfyllin or Newtown because the ones two minutes down the road are having lunch? It is ludicrous,” explained one crew member.  “We have no idea why they have decided to enforce this ruling but one that’s for sure is we’d all rather be made available. What they are doing is putting lives at risk when at the same time we’re all volunteering to be made available during our meal breaks.  People will die as a result of the absurd new rule.”
They also fear response times to life threatening calls will be further delayed despite already being the lowest in Wales.  “Response times in Powys are already pretty poor as it and this will just make things worse,” added the worried crew member.

Firegeezer has been reporting occasionally from several areas around the UK where this absurd rule has been in place.  Many times there have since been people who have been critically ill, sometimes dying as a nearby ambulance is off the air for the mandatory meal break.  The medics and their union have been very vocal in their opposition to this nutty reasoning.  Whenever one of these tragedies occur, the medics are both angry and emabarrassed about the whole thing.

See one of our previous reports on this scheme HERE,

AN AUSTRIAN AIRLINES (AUA) BOEING 777 was enroute from Tokyo to Vienna Wednesday when a 90-yr.-old woman took seriously ill.  The pilot radioed to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Finland requesting an emergency landing and calling for an ambulance to meet the aircraft.

However, when the plane landed and stopped on the taxiway, there was no ambulance.  The pilot radioed again, but still no ambulance.  Finally, 45 minutes later the ambulance showed up.  But by then the woman had passed away.  The ambulance had been standing by at another aircraft a kilometer away, a Finnair plane that had just arrived from Tokyo.

It’s early in the investigation, but it has already been determined that the airport ground control had passed on accurate information to the emergency dispatch center.  Now they are trying to determine why the ambulance went to the wrong airplane.

Sourced from:
Helsinki News
Austrian Times
YLE News

A 79-YR.-OLD MAN IN HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND, RECEIVED A DOUBLE-DOSE of National Health Service incompetency earlier this month.  The resident of Bishop’s Waltham was downed by an infection on June 3 and needed emergency transport to the nearest hospital in Winchester which was 11 miles away from his home.  So his wife called the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust and they responded.

Mr. Leslie Palmer was packaged up and put in the ambulance, ready for the 20 minute trip when things started to not go just right.  His wife tells Andrew Napier of This is Hampshire:

Mrs Palmer explained that the first time she knew something was wrong was when the driver said they were in Charles Watts Way, Hedge End – the opposite direction – and 19 miles away from the hospital.

“I heard the man inside tell the driver ‘get on the motorway’ but it was much longer than it should have been,” she explained.

They eventually reached the hospital 45 minutes after setting out on the 11-mile journey.  Nothing has been reported on just what the NHS hospital did for Mr. Palmer, but it didn’t seem to work.  He was sent back home where just two days later he required emergency transport back to the same hospital.

This time he got a different ambulance crew, but like the first one they have been forcefully instructed to always follow the guidance of the SatNav system on all of their travels.  (Street knowledge is apparently discouraged at South Central.)  She tells the PA how this journey went:

After leaving their home at 6:50 pm, “We were soon going through lanes I had never seen before,” said Mrs Palmer, a retired nanny.

“We were on little roads no bigger than the ambulance and my husband’s head was shaking around and we thought we were going to end up in a farm yard at any minute.”

Mrs Palmer said that the ambulance eventually got off the lanes at a village called Fishers Pond at 7.30pm but still five miles from the hospital in Winchester.

Another 45-minute scenic cruise for the Palmers.

Mrs. Palmer later stated the obvious,  ”It’s an utter nonsense. Taxi drivers have to know the roads, why can’t the ambulance driver know the roads – I cannot believe it.”

South Central Ambulance Service WEBSITE.

THE WELSH AMBULANCE SERVICE, MAINTAINING ITS REPUTATION as the worst segment of Britain’s National Health Service ambulance divisions,  took an agonizingly-long three hours to respond to an elderly woman who was laying on the floor in pain after a fall.

Hilda Davis, 75, fractured her hip when she fell in her home Tuesday afternoon at 2:15.  Mrs. Davis resides in a “sheltered accomodation” facility and when the home wardens found her 30 minutes later, they called 9-9-9 immediately.  But the ambulance did not arrive until 6 pm.  WalesOnline continues:

(Her son Mark) Davis, 50, who is a chiropodist, said: “I had a call saying that mum had a fall and as I had another couple of appointments to do, I assumed that the ambulance was en route and that I would meet mum in A&E.

“I called the warden as I was heading for A&E only to be told that mum was still there waiting for an ambulance.

“I headed straight for her home and the medics finally arrived at about 6pm – they were embarrassed that mum had been on the floor there for three hours.

“They did their best for her and got her to A&E.”

He added: “We’ve been let down by the ambulance service – not by the staff who are doing the best they can but by the service itself.

“This is not a service. For someone to be waiting three hours-plus, that’s not a service, especially for the elderly.”

The officials at the Welsh Ambulance Service are taking the same action that they do for all the other significant delayed calls, they issued a statement.  “We would like to apologise for any distress caused by the delayed response of the service.”

This follows on the heels of another remarkable event this past Saturday when a 79-yr.-old man was left laying and bleeding from a severe head injury for 2-½ hours before an ambulance arrived.  The ambulance was called at 4 pm and major head injuries are supposed to be moved up to a priority 1 level of dispatch.  The ambulance eventually arrived at 6:30.

Miss Harvey, 49, from Whitchurch, said: “We didn’t know what to do for the best – we thought about driving him because none of us had been drinking.

“But because he had hit his head so hard we were worried that something would happen on the way to hospital if it was just me and him in the car.

“We felt that calling an ambulance was the best thing to do – I now wish I’d taken him to hospital myself.”

Being delivered to the University Hospital of Wales wasn’t the end of his woes, however.  He was left waiting there for nearly six hours before he was seen and then a doctor finally got to him at 2 am.  The Welsh Ambulance Service jumped into action by issuing their standard statement,  “We apologise for any delay which may have occurred in this incident. We are unable to comment on individual cases but clearly this is an issue we are taking seriously and an investigation will be conducted.”

Ahhhh….nationalized health service.

SCOTTISH AMBULANCE SERVICE UNITS were involved in 334 collisions in 2008, with 67 of them occurring during emergency responses.  Patient transporters, designed for non-emergency transport of infirm patients to medical facilities, accounted for nearly one-third of the accidents.

However, one member of the Scottish Parliament is blaming the accident rate on pressures placed on the service to meet designated response-time averages.  The Daily Record reports:

Scottish Tory health spokeswoman Mary Scanlon blamed time targets for the number of accidents.

She said: “The target of reaching 75 per cent of 999 calls in eight minutes was achieved last year but it puts tremendous pressure on drivers.”

The Highlands and Islands MSP added: “More emphasis should be placed on the treatment given to the patient, rather than simply counting the minutes.

“Obviously, the time taken is important but it is only one of several elements.”

Read the entire article HERE.

IN GREAT BRITAIN, HOME OF THAT BUREAUCRATIC Boondoggle known as National Health Service, the ambulance drivers have become so reliant on their Sat-Nav systems (GPS in our parlance) that many of them are neglecting to learn their streets properly.

In the Norfolk area which is served by East of England Ambulance Service, they are continually charging down a dead-end street expecting to come out in another neighborhood.  The Norwich Evening News is REPORTING :

April Caton says she and her neighbours have witnessed several emergency vehicles rush past homes in Marlingford Way, Easton, only for them to then realise it is a dead end and hurtle back out of the road at breakneck speed.

“Houses in our street back onto this new housing estate and the ambulance crews are probably told by their sat-navs that they can get to it through our street, but they can’t.”

Unfortunately, the E of E Amb. Service is also having an apparent problem in getting their drivers to pass the word around that this street doesn’t have an outlet.  It makes it tough when you’re trying to get your response times down to a manageable level.

Firegeezer adds:  It brings to mind this bus driver in Seattle who felt that you can go on auto-pilot when you have your GPS thingy turned on HERE.

FOR THE SECOND TIME IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS the North West Ambulance Service in England, a part of the National Health Service, has left an elderly woman writhing in pain for several hours before getting an ambulance to her.

Irene Bennett, age 79, fell on the pavement outside her home and injured her shoulder.  The pain was so great that she could not move, nor could any of her neighbors move her due to the injury.  She was laying on freezing pavement outside when her daughter arrived to see what was wrong.

Neighbors attempt to keep Irene Bennett warm as she
lays on the freezing pavement awaiting the ambulance.

Worried about the fragile old lady getting hypothermia, neighbors began laying blankets over her and doing what they could to keep her warm.  Every time someone would place still another call to 9-9-9, they woud get the same response:  She was “not considered a priority case.”

After three hours an ambulance finally arrived to provide care and transport her to the hospital, another National Health Service facility, where she had to wait until the next day before a doctor would see her.  She had a fractured shoulder.

The North West Ambulance Service sent her the same stock letter of apology that they used earlier this month when Firegeezer reported HERE on a 70-yr.-old woman who was left lying on the floor with a broken hip for five hours until an ambulance arrived.

North West has a long history of this type of shoddy service.  Read about this latest outrage in the Daily Mail HERE.

UK’s NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE, which seems to constantly put new desks in service while taking ambulances out of service, has offered up still another scheme to cover up their failure to get ambulances to their patients.  The new proposal calls for not sending the ambulances in the first place.

This plan will be introduced into the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust in Buckinghamshire.  It calls for greater use of “rapid response cars” and a legion of volunteers and trained observers.  There are three levels of service proposed:

• Urban areas – They will send a rapid response car (one medic, no transport ability) to assess the patient and then the medic will decide if an ambulance is needed.
• Semi-urban areas – “Aternative healthcare professionals” and volunteers will somehow dash to the incident where they will assess the patient and make the decision if an ambulance is required.
• Rural areas – “First responders” including volunteers, fire crews and police officers will go to the patient and make the same determination.  If they call for an ambulance, then the target response time will be 19 minutes.

Even though it said workers would follow “robust clinical rules” the ambulance trust admits that the new set-up could make matters worse.  So far, nobody in Buckinghamshire seems very enthusiastic about the proposal.  The chairman of Buckinghamshire County Council’s overview and scrutiny committee for public health services, said, “It is not something I would be particularly comfortable with, but it seems they are just lobbing ideas in the air.” 

The Bucks Free Press has the latest REPORT.

THE CITIZENS OF MONMOUTH, WALES, are building up an anger over the lengthy waits for ambulances in life-threatening situations.

The Monmouthshire Beacon has published an editorial today (Friday) outlining just a few examples while writing about the growing problem.  One of the town councilors is complaining to the local MP (Member of Parliament) that he is receiving non-stop complaints and the he himself had to wait 3½ hours for an ambulance recently.  Last week, a man who suffered a stroke had to wait for an hour, yet the law says that the ambulance service should provide a maximum of 8 minutes to get on the scene.

Monmouth has grown in population from 9,000 to 15,000 but there is only one ambulance to serve them.  When it is on a call, the next nearest ambulance can be as much as 2 or 3 hours away.  Despite all that, the Welsh Ambulance Service, a part of the National Health Service, is planning on closing the town’s ambulance station completely.

Read the full editorial HERE.
Welsh Ambulance Service WEBSITE.

ONCE AGAIN A 911 CENTER IN THE ATLANTA, GEORGIA, region is coming into the spotlight following the disclosure that a dispatcher inexplicably put a paramedic engine back in service while it was en route to a dying teenager at a school.

The incident happened on Oct. 14 when a 16-yr.-old boy in a classroom suddenly collapsed, screaming “my heart!” and going into seizures.  An ambulance was dispatched along with the fire company, standard procedure for severe medical emergencies where paramedic-level care is obviously called for.

The ambulance was informed that FD was on the way, but when they arrived on scene there was no fire engine there yet.  Eighteen minutes later, the ambulance called for the fire engine.  Unbeknownst to the ambulance crew, the fire engine had been arbitrarily put back in service by one of the dispatchers while it was responding on the original call.

The second call by the ambulance successfully brought the additional help and paramedic, but the fire engine didn’t arrive on the scene until 37 minutes after the original call was received in dispatch.

The Atlanta Fire Dept. provided a timeline chart of the call to the media:

> 3:20 p.m.: Grady Memorial Hospital officials receive word of a reported seizure at Benjamin E. Mays High School.

> 3:21 p.m.: Grady sends Care Ambulance to school.

> 3:22 p.m.: A 911 operator dispatches Atlanta paramedics to the school.

> 3:29 p.m.: A 911 operator cancels the call to Atlanta paramedics. A crew from Care arrives at the school.

> 3:50 p.m.: Atlanta paramedics resent to the school.

> 3:57 p.m.: Atlanta paramedics arrive at the school. 

The Atlanta Fire Department is carrying out an investigation into the event.  The Atlanta 911 center supervisor is refusing to comment to the news media.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the STORY.
WAGA Ch. 5 has more along with a VIDEO HERE.

AN 81-YR.-OLD MAN COLLAPSED FROM A HEART ATTACK ON HIS DOORSTEP last Monday, only 100 yards away from the ambulance station.  Unfortunately for Mr. Alfred Parry of Herefordshire, England the station was closed that day and he died before the nearest ambulance arrived from 10 miles away.

The West Midlands Ambulance Service “strategically rotates its ambulance fleet” and Mr. Parry drew the short stick on Monday.  While his 12-yr.-old niece attempted heart massage, a neighbor ran to the ambulance station and found it shuttered.  He next ran (ran!) to a nearby hospital, but they told him that if the ambulance had been called, then it would arrive very soon.

[photopress:westmidlands_a.jpg,full,centered]

According to the witnesses, the ambulance took at least 25 minutes to get there.  By then the old gentleman had passed away.  One neighbor attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He said: “We needed professional help. It was just too long. A bit quicker with specialist help and he would have had half a chance.”   The entire community is upset and angry with West Midlands for their policy of arbitrarily closing stations rather than manning all of the ambulances.

A series of public statements from various officials with the ambulance service are enlightening:

• The ambulance service said it was “very regrettable” the time it took to arrive was longer than it would have hoped for. 
• “…..the service did a “fantastic job” once they arrived.”
• “Clearly it depends (on) the exact positioning of the ambulance.” 
• “I think there is a very definite message here for members of the public that they do need to consider which part of the NHS (National Health Service) that they want to access, so cases like this become more and more rare.” 
• “There is no doubt that at the time we did not have a vehicle close enough to help the gentleman. That is very regrettable.” 
•  “On the rare occasions that a situation like this occurs, the NHS Trust will always investigate the circumstances to see what, if any, lessons can be learned.” 

Quoth the bureaucrats.

sourced from BBC News, the Ledbury Reporter, and The Telegraph. 

West Midlands Ambulance Service WEBSITE.

PARAMEDICS WITH THE SCOTTISH AMBULANCE SERVICE (SAS) are claiming that the pressure to meet mandated response times is resulting in ambulances not being properly disinfected.

[photopress:scottish_amb_1.jpg,full,centered]

Not only are they not being give time to perform the daily and weekly cleaning, but they are seldom allowed to give proper cleansing after individual transports.  Requests for time to do “deep” cleaning after a patient has vomited or defecated are being refused in order to get the unit available for the next call more quickly.

One paramedic told the Dumferline Press:

“The only thing that seems to matters these days is reaching target figures on response times.

“The standard of hygiene is very basic. Whereas in other areas they have cleaners, in Fife it is down to the crews.  We wipe down surfaces at the start of the shift and that’s it. Sometimes if jobs are already piling up when you’re starting, it doesn’t even get that.”

Jonathan Fox from the Association of Professional Ambulance Personnel said: “The fight against superbugs cannot stop at the hospital door. The ambulance service is part of the total patient care package and nobody should have to be transported or work in a dirty ambulance. The issue of ambulance cleanliness is simply not being taken seriously enough.”

The Dumferline Press has the STORY.