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Ambulances hit 999 call targets

More ambulances are getting to patients in the West Midlands within the strict time targets set by the Government – despite a rise in demand for the service, new figures revealed today.

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It comes after West Midlands Ambulance Service Trust was fined £2.6 million in May and told to improve after the eight-minute response time benchmark was missed last year.

Delighted bosses say 76 per cent of serious but less time-critical calls from April to August this year were met within the time frame, exceeding the 75 per cent target and up from 73.6 per cent from last year.

And the new data shows that 80.5 per cent of calls to the highest priority cases were met within the time target.

Bosses say the improvement is down to staff working longer hours and extra manpower, despite a rise in calls of more than seven per cent between April and August.

Trust chief executive Anthony Marsh added: "Our staff are working incredibly hard to provide the very best care that they can to the people of the West Midlands.

"There is no doubt that this is challenging period for the organisation as a whole but what stands out is the willingness of staff to go the extra mile in all areas of the trust, be it frontline, control rooms, fleet services, back office functions.

"By working together we are able to ensure patients continue to get the level of service that we all want to provide."

Trust spokesman Murray MacGregor added: "We have introduced a number of things.

"We have been able to increase the number of staff which is obviously helping. Equally the staff are very generously doing overtime.

"We are continuing to treat more patients at home, rather than taking them to hospital.

"They are treating people with less serious conditions. The staff have gone through additional training."

He said the service takes around 57 per cent of patients to hospital compared to 90 per cent taken 20 years ago.

It was recently revealed around 30 ambulances a day are now being sent to other hospitals in the area instead of Stafford following a cut in the number of beds.

Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stafford Hospital, is being dissolved in November and the hospital is being downgraded, losing its critical care.

West Midlands Ambulance Service has been given funding to cope with longer journeys to other hospitals but it is not known what will happen once Mid Staffordshire is dissolved.

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