AMBULANCE RESPONSE TIMES CAUSING CONCERN

GOVERNMENT TARGETS (Ambulance Response Times)
Category A (immediately life threatening): 75% within eight minutes
Category B (serious, but not immediately life threatening): 14 minutes (urban), 19 minutes (rural)

Six of the 31 ambulance trusts the former West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Cumbria, West Midlands, and West Country Ambulance Service NHS Trusts; and the current Staffordshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust: did not record response times in the correct way, a government audit has found; & the number of calls recorded as meeting the eight minute response target for life-threatening emergencies may have been inflated.

Official statistics show a big rise in 999 emergency calls for ambulances in England in 2005-6 - a 10-year high of nearly six million calls

The 3 main forms of Mis-reporting were:

• Starting the clock later than the point defined by the Department of Health
• Incorrect data management
• Clocks on different servers not being synchronised which meant that time taken to respond was not calculated correctly

Health Minister Lord Warner said 

"The Department of Health takes mis-reporting of NHS performance data extremely seriously and is determined to ensure transparency and consistency in reporting." .... "measures had been put in place to ensure no repetition in future, and disciplinary action was possible against those who had failed to record data correctly."

"The ambulance service has performed well against the back-drop of a record number of calls. We are determined to secure further improvements. The reforms that we are implementing from last year's ambulance review will lead to better response times for emergency calls and will also see ambulances delivering a wider range of healthcare to patients."

Mike Jackson said: 

"Clarity is important and these mistakes appear to have been rectified but we want to ensure that staff are given clear recording instructions, so that accurate response times are recorded across all ambulance trusts." 
(National Officer - 'Unison').

Trusts who achieve government targets receive financial reward, and a likely to be given a higher star rating.

14/08/2006

How re-assuring these response times are - for us rural folk !   [Ed.]

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