It has been reported this week that all ambulance services in England have been put on the highest alert level due to extremely high demand.
NHS Trusts say that the issues stem from a combination of staff absences due to Covid, the current extremely hot weather, and delays handing over patients to Accident and Emergency units.
The Health Service Journal first reported that all 10 trusts in England were on the highest alert level, known as the Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) 4. This means that they were under “extreme pressure”.
Some Trusts reached this level during the Omicron wave peak in the winter, with West Midlands Ambulance Service reporting it had been on REAP 4 for months.
South Central Ambulance Service had also declared a critical incident, which is even more severe. It said that this was due to the current pressures on their services, commenting:
“We continue to prioritise our response to those patients with life-threatening and serious emergencies. But, due to the current levels of pressure we are seeing, there will be delays in responding to other patients with less urgent needs who are assessed as requiring an ambulance response.”
Managing Director of the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, Martin Flaherty, said:
“The NHS ambulance sector is under intense pressure, with all ambulance services operating at the highest level of four within their local resource escalation action plans, normally only ever reserved for major incidents or short-term periods of unusual demand….Severe delays in ambulance crews being able to hand over their patients at many hospital emergency departments are having a very significant impact on the ambulance sector’s ability to respond to patients as quickly as we would like to…”
Comment
Clearly, this is very worrying news.
When there is a health emergency, patients would like to think that an ambulance will be on hand swiftly. Sadly, at the moment, it appears that might not always be possible.
As a result, patient safety is very clearly at risk. For some health emergencies, every moment counts, and delays getting to a patient, or handing them over at the hospital, might mean a very different outcome than would otherwise have been the case for some patients.
The demand is outweighing the resources available and, of course, that leads to the inevitable vital question – what can be done to help reduce the pressures on NHS Trusts so that there is a hope these issues can be resolved and waiting times reduced?
How can we help?
Danielle Young is a Legal Director in our Medical Negligence team, which has been ranked in tier one by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500.
If you have any questions in relation to the subjects discussed in this article, then please get in touch with Danielle or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online form.
Contact us