"Enormous pressure" call on failing ambulance bosses (From Bucks Free Press)

"Enormous pressure" call on failing ambulance bosses

11:10am Wednesday 27th May 2009

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AMBULANCE chiefs should be put under “enormous pressure” to improve failing waiting times, it has been urged.

South Central Ambulance Service must address “serious concerns” among the public over response times that are not hitting national targets, managers were told.

Latest figures show that 63 per cent of the most serious “category A” calls are met in eight minutes. The target is 75 per cent.

Ambulance managers say the rural nature of Buckinghamshire makes it difficult to hit the target.

An NHS chief said he had been unable to get hold of the CEO of the service – and Buckinghamshire was being charged more than other counties covered by SCAS.

And not enough patients were not getting to life-saving heart attack treatment fast enough, he warned.

Previously shocked board members have been told a woman who fell in the rain in Chesham had to wait in agony for more than an hour for an ambulance (see links, below).

Watchdog chief Mike Appleyard told Buckinghamshire NHS Primary Care Trust managers: “There is understandable anger among the public about this.

“It would do the PCT well to express some serious concern on this. The figures are not improving at all.”

Figures from the PCT – which pays for most NHS services - show 93.8 per cent of calls were seen in 19 minutes against a 95 per cent target.

Yet Cllr Appleyard, chairman of Buckinghamshire County Council’s overview and scrutiny committee for public health, said some of the remaining 6.2 per cent were “seriously above 19 minutes”.

Questioning an apparent lack of PCT action he said yesterday: “I really do think an enormous amount of pressure needs to be put onto the ambulance service to see some action.”

Chairman Stewart George said “it would be my intention if we don’t see some movement” to calls managers before the board again.

Director of commissioning Colin Thompson said the service’s CEO was “extremely hard to get hold of” and the PCT pays “considerably more” than Berkshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, also covered by SCAS.

Data showing how well it was performing was lacking, he added. “It is about understanding the problem – there is a lot of stabbing in the dark going on here,” he said.

Yet he said a new manager who had worked in the ambulance service would add insight into the problem.

Mr Thompson also said he was concerned about the speed in which heart attack patients get clot-busting thrombolysis treatment.

The national target demands 68 per cent get the treatment within an hour. But this was 55 per cent in Bucks in 2008/09.

Other health targets show: • The PCT helped 1,476 people quit smoking against a target of 2,152 in 2008/09.

• 70 per cent of people were seen in 48 hours in a sexually transmitted infections clinic against a target of 95 per cent last month.

• The PCT screened 8.2 per cent of 15 to 24-year olds for STD chlamydia against a target of 17 per cent last year. This year’s target is 25 per cent.

• 99 per cent of people were seen in A&E in four hours last month against a target of 98 per cent.

• Waiting targets to get patients seen within 18 weeks of seeking help were met last month.

• Cancer targets to get patients seen within two weeks, 31 days or 62 days were met last month.

• The PCT met a target to get GP practices to open longer in 2008/09. By March 32 out of 60 had opened longer.

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