Another Ambulance failure in Audlem

Another deplorable failure in Audlem by the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has been brought to Audlem Online's attention. The family involved have given full permission for the details to be published – we will refer to them as Mr & Mrs M.

NWAS were sent a copy of this story yesterday morning asking if they wished to comment. Despite a number of emails and phone calls saying that they would provide a comment yesterday afternoon, a more detailed response has yet to arrive.

Mrs M is an elderly resident with long-standing Critical Heart Failure. Her powerful medications are an important factor in this case.

She suffered a severe internal bleed with associated low oxygen blood percentage and low blood pressure last month. Her husband called the surgery asking for a home visit and a doctor from Audlem Medical Practice called at their home.

GP called ambulanceIt was confirmed that afternoon that Mrs M had to be admitted to hospital as she needed blood urgently and the Medical Practice made arrangements for an ambulance. Hospital letters and notes were collected by Mr M from the surgery at 6.10pm.

By 7.00pm, the ambulance had still not arrived and Mr M dialed 999 to find out where the ambulance was. The NWAS confirmed that an ambulance had been called by the GP but that the ambulance service was very busy with 999 calls.

Other 999 calls take priorityMr M asked if other 999 calls received would take priority over his wife's ambulance call and was told they would. He was asked if Mrs M's condition had changed but replied it hadn't – she was very seriously ill but it hadn't changed, an honest response he immediately regretted on putting the phone down.

The ambulance eventually arrived after 7.30pm, well over eighty minutes after it had been called for by the GP. Mrs M was eventually booked into A & E at Leighton at 8.25pm.

She required four units of blood. Her condition deteriorated so much during the night that Mr M and her family were summoned by the hospital to her bedside at 3.00am. Fortunately, Mrs M got through that second emergency – she had earlier collapsed at 11.05pm in the Emergency Assessment Unit before being seen by a doctor at Leighton – and has since returned home to Audlem.

Mr M, who has passed a statement to Parish Councillor Mike Hill and Audlem Online signed by both him and his wife confirming these events, says that their experience compared with those of friends across the border has been a real eye-opener.

Friends in Shropshire and in Staffordshire have praised the speed of their paramedics and the rapid time of ambulance arrivals. Clearly, says Mr M, Shropshire and Staffordshire are a long way ahead of this area.

NWAS targetsWe anticipate that NWAS will argue that the call from a GP receives a lower priority than a 999 call, as said by their operator. However, the NWAS website – which, incidentally, is currently extremely slow to access, perhaps symptomatic of its current service – says:

Emergency 999 calls are prioritised into three categories to ensure that the most life threatening cases receive the quickest response. The three categories are as follows:

“Category A calls which are prioritised as immediately life threatening. The Ambulance Service aims to respond to 75% of category A calls within eight minutes or less.*

Urgent calls from GPs and other health professionals, requesting ambulance transport for their patients, are prioritised in the same way. For GP urgent calls, the Ambulance Service aims to arrive at hospital within 15 minutes of the time stipulated by the GP.”

*Currently 3.8% within 8 minutes for Audlem according to NWAS statistics obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
** Currently just 39.8% for Audlem emergency calls (Red and Amber) despite a personal promise by NWAS chief executive to Audlem representatives in September 2008 that virtually 100% of Audlem emergencies would be reached by an ambulance within 19 minutes.

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