Ambulance: we need volunteers to hit waiting times (From Bucks Free Press)

Ambulance: we need volunteers to hit waiting times

4:50pm Monday 15th June 2009

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KEY ambulance waiting times will only be hit if members of the public attend to some patients first, a health chief has said.

A South Central Ambulance Service boss said it could not get to 75 per cent of seriously ill patients within eight minutes without peoples’ help.

It is offering to train residents as “community first responders” who would attend some cases, such as heart attacks.

This is needed, they argue, as only a massive cash injection would have ambulances ready within eight minutes of potential incidents to hit the target.

The service has been strongly criticised for failing to meet the waiting time target, which bosses say is hard to reach because of the rural nature of Buckinghamshire (see link, bottom of story).

Yet a watchdog today said managers were too concerned with hitting the target to get Government funding.

Patients Association vice chairman Michael Summers said: “What they are trying to achieve is a goal by which they have a financial reward.

“That is not beneficial to the patient.”

He said: “Volunteers are not trained paramedics, that is the point.”

April figures show 63 per cent of the most serious “category A” calls are reached within eight minutes. SCAS said this is increasing.

John Nichols, divisional director for Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, said: “The best way [to reach the target] in a rural community without spending shed loads of money is to engage the community and have community first responders.”

Schemes were thriving in Oxon, he said – but there were large gaps in Bucks with programmes in Chesham, Amersham and Princes Risborough.

Ambulances would still be sent to patients, he said, but a first responder would count within the target and, crucially, help save lives.

This would be for people with breathing issues, for example, or some bleeding.

Yet first responders would not deal with pregnancy issues, children, road crashes or people injured in fights, he said.

Getting to people with NHS resources “would need an additional 94 vehicles, on 24-hours-a-day at a cost of an additional £55m” on top of its £102m budget, he added.

Yet he said the target was not the ultimate test of how well SCAS performed.

A patient reached in 7m59s could die and be judged a success but a patient reached in 8m01s could survive and be judged a failure, he said.

Managers were beginning to look at the patient’s conditions and not just the speed of the response, he said.

Yet he admitted two to three more ambulances were needed and private ambulance services were plugging the gap.

The service has to get to 95 per cent of all calls, including less serious “category B” cases, in 19 minutes.

It has failed on category B calls recent months but figures seen by BFP show the target is being met.

However, it is not known how long it takes for an ambulance to arrive once the 19 minute target is breached.

Shocked health bosses were last year told of a woman who fell in Chesham and had to wait in “agony” for more than an hour in the rain.

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