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Patients died following delay in treatment
Ambulance
Five patients have died in the past three years following delays in treatment or response by Lancashire’s ambulance service.
And in one incident, ambulance crews lost a patient for almost five hours while transporting them to hospital. The patient was later found in a garage at midnight.
The findings were revealed by the North West Ambulance Service, which operates from 21 stations across Lancashire, following a Freedom of Information request about the number of Serious Untoward Incidents (SUIs) recorded.
The figures also show a number of terrifying attacks on ambulance staff.
In one incident an ambulance was attacked by youths while a patient who had suffered a heart attack was on board. In another, a paramedic and ambulance crew were attacked by a knife man.
In 2008 an ambulance crew responded to a false 999 call which ended with the crew held captive in a flat and threatened with a knife. They were rescued and released by police.
Also in 2008, thieves struck while an ambulance was at a repair garage, stealing a laptop “potentially containing confidential patient information.”
A year later, a patient was lost in the middle of the night while being transported from a kidney specialist centre.
The log of the incident reads: “Patient being transferred from renal unit to acute trust by patient transport services at 19.15. Acute trust reported patient missing at 23.58hrs when they had not arrived at destination. Patient found in vehicle parked in ambulance station garage at midnight.”
Ambulances have also been involved in nine road crashes.
But ambulance chiefs today said the number of incidents is a tiny percentage of the calls they deal with.
Deborah Bullock, head of clinical safety, said: “From 2007 to 2010, the Trust responded to 2,935,924 emergency incidents, of which 57 resulted in the report of a serious untoward incident. We have put a lot of effort into ensuring our reporting culture is strong.”
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Comments
There are 7 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
Diesel10
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 07:19 AM#4 - Whilst he may have been not an 'emergency' type of patient how do you park up for the night and forget you've got someone in the back of your bus? In an ideal world things would all happen as we wish them to. Kezzer's son would have had an ambulance 5 minutes away instead of 20 and there wouldn't be nutters make false calls and holding crews at knife point. Sadly it dosen't happen that way but by and large things seem to run not too badly when out of nearly 3m calls only 57 result in a 'untoward' incident.
Chris in Preston
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 02:23 AMPoster No5. Whilst I feel for your loss I fail to see what point you are making. Your post is hard to read given all the ...... I don't see what the current government, who had nothing to do with introducing the problem with management and back office workers to such an extent there are more people monitoring what happens than actually doing things, has to do with it. The labour government caused the problem of more people doing nothing than doing something. The current government are trying to rectify that mistake. Fast response paramedics are just that.
kezzer
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 12:18 AMMy Son died in 2006,he was Epileptic,a Paramedic in a car turned up after 20 minutes.My eldest son had to try to save his younger brother via the phone...999,the paramedic couldnt put him in his car and called an ambulance...more time....Nathan died.He was 17..Dec 15th...he may have been already dead...as a parent,it made me think...could Nathan have been saved? I was with the team at RPH,they worked so hard for over an hour...did they get a chance..? Did Nathan? More of this to come people,with this Government !! Heartbroken and angry dad !!
Orange-utan
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 07:37 PMIt might be worth mentioning also regarding the patient who got left in an ambulance until midnight-there is a massive difference between the Patient Transport Services ambulances and the nee-naws that answer emergency calls. The patient in this case, while probably distressed, would not have been at any real risk.
Orange-utan
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 07:32 PMWell done North West Ambulance Service - it sounds like you're all doing a stellar job!
itsnotallthatbad
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 01:45 PMto reinforce the point about unnecessary calls, heres some interesting stats from Greater Manchester Ambulance Service. http:www.nwas.nhs.ukInternetLinkClick.aspx?fileticket=tDiljofiDbQ%3d&tabid=350&mid=1407
itsnotallthatbad
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 01:39 PMi dont understand the purpose of this report : is it to highlight failings within NWAS, or is it to highlight the fact that front-line staff have to put up with unnecessary abuse on a daily basis? either way, considering the number of 999 calls from people whose problems could be dealt with by either their GP or NHS Direct, the Ambulance Service does a remarkable job in managing to quickly get to most people who are in urgent medical need.
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