Ambulance chiefs quizzed about quality of service at Community Action Meeting

Last night's Community Action Meeting, organised by the police, saw ambulance chiefs being quizzed by local residents about some recent emergency response times that have caused major concerns in the Audlem Area.

The North West Ambulance Service, as it's now called after another re-organsiation, was represented by Ian Moses, Sector Manager for the Central and East Cheshire Area; Mike Moore, Operational Service Manager (OSM) for Central Cheshire Area and Asiya Jelani, Communications and PPI Lead for the Cheshire and Merseyside Area of NWAS. After a description by Ian Moses of how the ambulance service deals with emergency calls, questions flooded in. They focussed on two recent cases when local incidents led to very lengthy waits for an ambulance after 999 calls although a lady also mentioned two occasions when there had been 45 minute waits with one case involving a haemorrhage.

There were clearly two versions of the facts – in one incident, the person involved, who was at last night's meeting, said it took 70 minutes for the ambulance to arrive from Widnes and this was confirmed by the ambulance crew on the night concerned. Ian Moses and Asiya Jelani insisted the ambulance took 59 minutes and came from Northwich. In the second case, a 60 minute wait was said by the ambulance service to be 44 minutes. These differences were never satisfactorily reconciled.

One resident said that he didn't feel any more confident about ambulance cover after hearing what the ambulance service had to say. Asked on numerous occasions if rural communities received a poorer service, the reply was constantly repeated as 'We focus on areas of historical demand first." There was an admission that "Audlem is one of those areas where we know we have problems" and it was admitted that there has been a 6% annual increase in demand for ambulance services but that hadn't been matched with resources. "We are doing what we can within our resources" they said.

People asked what they could do to press for a better service and accepted they wouldn't get a locally based ambulance. Residents and a local parish councillor pointed out that local firefighters had volunteered to be 'community first responders' and were willing to be trained to provide immediate assistance. Audlem Parish Council had backed this approach over six months ago but with no response as yet from the ambulance service. Ian Moses did agree that was the best way forward and that Audlem should press for a local first responders service.

The ambulance service agreed, after being asked, that they would return for a further Community Action Meeting in a few months time and that they would provide information on how their service in the Audlem area compared with other areas. Local representatives were also invited to visit the ambulance call centre to see how emergency calls were handled.

At the beginning of the meeting, residents voted for 'Speeding Vehicles' to be the top police priority, followed by 'Parking' and 'Vandalism'.

The meeting has attracted significant media interest with an Evening Sentinel reporter there while your Audlem Online reporter was contacted by the BBC immediately after the meeting and gave a radio interview describing how the meeting had gone.

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