Ambulance bosses: We are not massaging 999 figures (From Gazette)

Ambulance bosses: We are not massaging 999 figures

12:00pm Saturday 4th February 2012 in Local News By Adam Cornell

THE East of England Ambulance Service has denied accusations it is manipulating figures to hit emergency response targets.

The GMB union says First Responders – volunteers with first aid training – and rapid response vehicles should not be included in the eight-minute response time for life- threatening calls.

It claims the target should only be met if the incident is attended by a fully-crewed ambulance.

An ambulance service spokesman said the accusation it is distorting figures is untrue.

The GMB pointed to the case of a man in West Mersea who waited for two-and-a-half-hours with a broken hip.

A spokesman for the union said: “The ambulance service sent a rapid response car to an accident victim with a fractured hip on January 3. It was staffed by a single person who could only wait with the the patient for the two-and-a half-hours it took for the ambulance to arrive.

“The patient remained on the ground in the rain until he could be moved into the ambulance.

“Because the rapid response vehicle reached the patient within the eight minutes, it would have been logged as a target met. This is misleading the public.”

The union fears there will be 400 job cuts in the next three years, which will make the situation worse.

Mark Vivian, GMB organiser, said: “Ambulance staff want to do everything possible to look after the health and well-being of the public.

“To enable them to do this they need the resources to allow them to do their jobs.

“One thing they cannot allow is management distorting the figures on targets met because this simply misleads the public.”

The East of England Ambulance Service admitted response targets to the most urgent calls are marked as met as long as an ambulance, rapid response car or First Responder arrives in eight minutes and the patient reaches hospital in 19 minutes.

However, it denies it is misleading the public.

A spokesman said: “The standard is about getting care to patients in potentially life-threatening emergencies.

“The case cited by the GMB was not life-threatening, so was subject to neither of these standards.

“We recognise the length of time in getting hospital transport to this particular patient was simply not good enough.

“It is for this reason this incident is being investigated, as all back up delays are.”

The trust denied there were plans to make frontline staff redundant and accused the union of publicising misleading information damaging staff morale.

Figures for April to October last year show the trust responded to 75.9 per cent of life-threatening calls in eight minutes. The target is 75 per cent.

A total of 95 per cent of these patients were taken to hospital in 19 minutes, on par with the target.