An Audlem resident with a perforated bowel was so badly let down by the ambulance service, the NWAS, that his wife had to drive him to Leighton Hospital.
On Tuesday, 2nd February, a doctor from Audlem Medical Practice made a home visit to a patient in the village. The doctor decided the patient had to be transferred to hospital as soon as possible.
The call by the doctor requesting an ambulance was made between 6.45 and 7.00pm from the Medical Practice.
No ambulanceBy 9.20pm, with no sign of an ambulance, the patient's wife was desperately chasing the ambulance service who confirmed they had received the earlier request by a doctor. Then came the comment, explaining the no-show: "All the ambulances are out on emergencies."
The wife explained her husband was an emergency but, not getting anywhere, managed to get him into their car and drove him to Leighton, arriving at A&E at about 10.00pm.
Imagine her surprise when an ambulance arrived at the hospital as they were going in. The 'patient' in the ambulance was drunk, described by the crew as "out stone cold." The crew, hardly surprisingly, were asked if transporting a drunk was more important than a desperately ill man with a perforated bowel.
The patient had an emergency operation and was in hospital for sixteen days. Now at home he is recovering, albeit very slowly.
PressureRegular readers will recall, after pressure from Audlem and Nantwich representatives, an additional high dependency ambulance will now be stationed in Nantwich to serve the town and rural areas including Audlem. Judging by this latest failure, caused by insufficient ambulances, this additional resource cannot come too soon.
The NWAS says it is monitoring progress on response times to Audlem and will meet local representatives regularly to assess performance. So, if you have to call 999, it would help if you could note the time of the call and when the ambulance arrives.
If it takes over 19 minutes, the official target, please let Cllr. Mike Hill (811843) or Audlem Online know. This information will be important in helping to avoid the awful situation where there's a lengthy delay before an ambulance arrives.
Or worse, in this latest case neither an ambulance turning up, nor even a phone call alerting the patient's family an ambulance will not be coming out to Audlem because they are too busy.
A formal complaint is now being made by the patient and his wife against the NWAS.
A spokesperson from The North West Ambulance Service has since commented:
“A formal complaint has been received by the Trust and we are therefore unable to comment on the details of this incident, and it is important not to pre-determine the outcome before the investigation is completed.
It is also important to clarify the different types of calls NWAS receives – those that are emergency calls and those classed as urgent by a GP or other healthcare professional.
For emergency 999 calls, the Trust aims to meet the following targets over a year:
-A8 – 75 percent of calls categorised as serious or life-threatening to be responded to in eight minutes
-A19 – 95 percent of calls categorised as serious or life-threatening to be responded to in 19 minutes
-B19 – 95 percent of calls categorised as serious but not life-threatening to be responded to in 19 minutes
-C60 – 95 percent of calls categorised as neither serious nor life-threatening to be responded in 60 minutes
With urgent calls from a GP, the call-taker receiving the call from the GP discusses the patient's medical needs and the urgency of the case and a time frame is agreed which is generally between one to two hours. As a healthcare professional has made the referral, the information given by them determines the response required.
Should the patient require emergency transportation, the GP would call 999 and request an ambulance to arrive sooner.”
This story has been checked carefully with the family concerned.
This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.
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