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

East Midlands Ambulance Service has been criticised for failing to get people to and from hospital appointments in the city on time.

Councillors at a meeting of the Notts Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee said the service now needed to be made accountable for its poor service.

Read full article: This Is Nottingham

In a report, Jeremy Colman said many patients have to wait too long in ambulances before being transferred into the care of hospital staff.

This can leave vehicles queuing outside A&E when they are needed elsewhere, he added.

He urged hospitals and the ambulance trust to work to improve the problem.

The report found that while there have been some positive steps to improving the handover process, the true extent of the delays is unclear.

Handover times are not being consistently recorded due to problems with new data terminals, staff resistance in using them and uncertainty over the process of recording information, it said.

Read full article: BBC NEWS.

Of 7,018 calls that were considered to be Class A or immediately life threatening, ambulances or rapid response vehicles arrived within the recommended eight minutes for only 4,849 of them.

That left 31 per cent waiting longer than they should have done.

The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) should arrive at 75 per cent of Class A calls within its target time.

The shock figures were revealed following a Freedom of Information request by the Warrington Guardian.

Helen Jones, MP for Warrington North, said: “I have repeatedly taken up the issue of delays in response times for ambulances in Warrington and am astonished that the trust is still not meeting the targets.

Read full article: This Is Cheshire

The East Midlands Ambulance Service is anxious that it suffers delays in getting to emergency calls at a time when speed is vital.

Dave Kent, operations resource manager for the Lincolnshire division of the service said, “Our crews have difficulty finding the location of the patient quickly when road signs are dirty or have graffiti on them or if the house we are looking for is not clearly numbered.

“So we’re asking people to spend five minutes this week checking their road sign and to give it a clean if the name is not visible. Putting up a clear house number which will be visible from the roadside will also mean we can find you much faster.”

Read full article: Market Rasen Mail.