BBC release report on average ambulance wait time in England

A recent investigation by the BBC has revealed the average time it takes the ambulance service to reach critically ill or injured patients, living in both urban and rural areas throughout England and parts of Wales.

According to the NHS Key Statistics: England, February 2019 report, “Life threatening calls” – or those classified as Category 1 calls – should be responded to within an average of seven minutes. However, the BBC investigation has found that in some parts of England, Category 1 patients had to wait over 20 minutes for an ambulance between January and October 2018.

Such high priority cases include individuals suffering from cardiac arrests; stab wounds; major blood loss; seizures; patients not breathing or struggling to breathe, and women in the end stages of labour. Representing around one in 20 emergency cases the ambulance service deals with, these are prioritised above all others because of the risk to life.

In such situations, minutes could make the difference between life and death - particularly were a patient is suffering cardiac arrest.

Helen Dolan, Senior Partner and Head of the Clinical Negligence team here at Potter Rees Dolan, said:

We have seen cases where a delay of minutes really did make a difference, sadly resulting in a much poorer outcome for a young woman in cardiac arrest. We have also seen cases where the ambulance was missing essential pieces of resuscitation equipment which surely must be avoidable.

Research from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) shows that about two thirds of cardiac arrest patients can survive if they are given all the necessary treatment immediately, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation. However, every minute delay reduces their chance of survival by 10%.

Accepting that some responses do take longer, ambulance bosses have stressed that staff were working hard despite "challenging circumstances" , such as the levels of demand and remote nature of some locations of patients. They also added that callers are provided with expert advice over the phone until the response unit arrives.

Chair of the UK Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, Anthony Marsh, has called on more members of the public to seek basic life support training, so they would know what to do if faced with an emergency. Further steps are also being taken to improve the speed of responses, including police and fire crews being enlisted and trained to respond to calls. Furthermore, the BHF is in the process of working with ambulance services to map where defibrillators are around England, following the recent increase in purchases of the equipment by private firms.

Read how Helen secured compensation for our client, a mother of two left severely brain damaged due to 999 call handler error.

Read Helen's client received £8 million settlement after suffering brain damage due to failures by paramedics.

Helen Dolan is a Senior Partner and clinical negligence solicitor here at Potter Rees Dolan. Should you have any queries about clinical negligence issues, or indeed any other aspect of this article and wish to speak to Helen or any other member of the team, please contact us on 0161 237 5888 or contact Helen directly.