Ambulance wait blamed on HQ switch
Thirty critically ill patients in Worcestershire were kept waiting for an ambulance to arrive for 28 minutes or longer during one three-week period alone last month, a campaigner claimed today.
Conservative spokesman Harriett Baldwin fears that the closure of the ambulance control centre at Bransford has delayed response times for ambulances in Worcestershire.
She expressed her concerns after a visit to the West Midlands Ambulance Service control room in Brierley Hill, which is now handling calls for Worcestershire.
Miss Baldwin said the ambulance service aimed to send a vehicle to 75 per cent of critical medical emergencies within eight minutes and to reach 95 per cent of such patients within 19 minutes.
But figures for December showed it took 23 minutes for an ambulance to respond to 95 per cent of Category A calls, and 2.5 per cent of critically ill patients were still awaiting ambulances at 28 minutes, she said.
The ambulance service blamed the rise in response times not meeting government targets on an increase in the number of emergency calls in December, and a slow turnaround in dealing with patients at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.
Miss Baldwin said: "The trust's charts actually stop at 28 minutes, so this performance is literally 'off the charts' it is so poor."
