The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) came under fire from health bosses last year after failing to get to enough 999 calls on time. Now, new figures reveal the service has turned its performance around – and is beating government targets.

The news comes after the trust that runs NWAS was given an ultimatum in August to improve – or face a £3.8m fine.

Paramedics are supposed to get to life-threatening emergencies within eight minutes – and trusts must hit the standard 75 per cent of the time.

via Manchester Evening News – menmedia.co.uk.

According to a paramedic working in Hull for Yorkshire Ambulance Service, staff are stretched to the limit, often working 12 hour shifts and sometimes up to 13 or 14 hours, without a meal break.

He claimed over Christmas 26 shifts hadn’t been covered because of sickness and crews were being delayed for up to an hour at the hospital because of a lack of beds.

Unison regional organiser Ray Gray said there were close to 100 vacancies going unfilled in Yorkshire: “Some of it is cost efficiencies and when they get a vacancy it takes nearly a year to get a qualified paramedic up and trained.

“For health and safety reasons unions have never agreed with a 12-hour shift, if they get a call at the end of the shift to the far end of the patch that could be another half an hour.

via Yorkshire Post.

The following statistics were released today by the Department of Health:

Ambulance System Indicators; Category A 8 minute response time, category A 19 minute response time, call abandonment rate, re-contact rate following discharge of care, time to answer call, time to treatment, ambulance calls closed with telephone advice or managed without transport to A&E, ambulance emergency journeys; for period November 2011.

Ambulance Clinical Outcomes; Outcome from cardiac arrest – return of spontaneous circulation, outcome from acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), outcome from stroke for ambulance patients, outcome from cardiac arrest – survival to discharge; for period August 2011.

Read full article at – Department of Health.

The service scooped the top prize at the 2011 Health Business Awards ceremony at the Emirates Stadium in London on December 8.It covers Hampshire along with several other counties and beat out its counterparts in the West Midlands, South West and London for the award.

Figures showed it was the best performing ambulance trust in England for response times and had improved its percentage of patients treated without having to go to hospital.

via Hampshire Chronicle.

When Roger Thayne quit in 2006, he said “an earthquake” was needed to change the way the service was working.

He has now reviewed progress for BBC Wales’ Week In, Week Out programme and said it was “definitely costing lives”.

Health Minister Edwina Hart said there were “problems” but said they were working to improve the service.

via BBC NEWS

In two months, 671 patients – an average of 11 a day – waited longer than the government-set target time in our area.

Breaches have more than quadrupled from the 119 recorded in the same period last year.

Trust managers have now nominated special ‘queue nurses’ who take patients from ambulance crews, freeing up the paramedics to return to duty.

They are also working with South Central Ambulance NHS Trust who are using a ‘split crew’ system in which only one worker stays with the patient.

This means their partner can team up with another ambulance and reduce the number of vehicles queuing outside the hospital.

via Portsmouth Today .

Five of the nation’s 12 NHS ambulance trusts failed to meet their target of reaching 75 per cent of the most serious incidents within eight minutes in 2008-09, the NHS Information Centre found.

And only a third hit targets to arrive at the scene of 95 per cent of serious but not immediately life-threatening incidents within 19 minutes.

via Mail Online.

South Central Ambulance Service must address “serious concerns” among the public over response times that are not hitting national targets, managers were told.

Latest figures show that 63 per cent of the most serious “category A” calls are met in eight minutes. The target is 75 per cent.

Read full article: Bucks Free Press

Although the number of patients attending A&E continued to increase last year with 19.6 million visits recorded across England, NHS staff have continued to deliver the same excellent standards of care with almost all of these seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours of arriving at A&E departments.

Read full article: eGov monitor

North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) last night blamed an unprecedented demand during the past year and a change in how data is recorded for missing its targets.

Read full article: Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk