The GMB union says First Responders – volunteers with first aid training – and rapid response vehicles should not be included in the eight-minute response time for life- threatening calls.

It claims the target should only be met if the incident is attended by a fully-crewed ambulance.

An ambulance service spokesman said the accusation it is distorting figures is untrue.

The GMB pointed to the case of a man in West Mersea who waited for two-and-a-half-hours with a broken hip.

via Gazette.

The figures for December, show that EMAS reached 72.8 per cent of the most serious calls – known as category A8 – within eight minutes.The target is 75 per cent, and the national average for December was 74 per cent.

EMAS also failed to hit targets for responding to less serious emergency calls.

via This is Nottingham.

The service plans to introduce more ambulances across the region but the re-allocation of vehicle numbers and types in some locations has raised concerns.

The MP for Berwick, Sir Alan Beith, said the loss of one of the towns two emergency ambulances would risk lives.NEAS said without changes it would “fail to meet response targets”.

The plans include adding a new category of ambulance to the current rapid response vehicles and dual-crewed ambulances.These “urgent care” vehicles, with no paramedic, would deal with the majority of hospital and GP transfers and other non-emergency calls.

Some places would gain one or more types of ambulance, while others would lose some of their current provision.Many locations would gain one type of ambulance while losing another.

via BBC News.

Mr Davies called the meeting following two cases in the county involving the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust.

An inquest into the death of Jacqueline Davies, 49, from Monmouth, heard she died in hospital froma hypoxic brain injury and probable pneumonia on January 20 last year after collapsing at her home nine days earlier. But the coroner also heard bad weather, problems handing patients over at hospitals and a high call volume meant there were no ambulances free to attend Ms Davies, and emergency services took more than 41 minutes to reach her.

via Free Press Series.

The anonymous staff member also claimed that local crews were being sent elsewhere in the region to help those areas meet response targets.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service said the service was not over stretched and lives were not at risk.

Watch the video at BBC News

Department of Health statistics from November showed that East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) was above the national target of reaching 75 per cent of such casualties within eight minutes.

EMAS has gone from joint worst in the country last month to joint fifth of 12 ambulance services after responding to 76.5 per cent of category A calls within the Government’s time specification.

West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) recorded a figure of 76 per cent.

The figures also showed that EMAS had failed to improve its efforts to reach lifethreatening emergencies within 19 minutes.

via Burton News & Staffordshire Newspaper

Crews are given a target of half an hour to drop off patients.

But figures from the West Midlands Ambulance Service show in the first nine months of the year, ambulances sat outside the University Hospital of North Staffordshire’s unit for a total of 350 hours above the guideline – the equivalent of 14 and a half days.

The figures, obtained by a Sentinel Freedom of Information request, reveal the wait at Stafford Hospital was 427 hours over the same period.

In 2010, the lost time amounted to 256 hours at the Hartshill unit and 400 at Stafford and in 2009, it was just 193 and 194 hours respectively.

The University Hospital brings in 42 per cent of its 100,000-plus annual patients by ambulance.

It had its worst month in June when 63.5 hours ticked by as ambulances stood outside the Princes Road unit instead of being on emergency calls.

via This is Staffordshire.

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

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.

The bikes will be used by paramedics in Edinburgh and the Lothians to help them get through crowds more easily.

Read full article: The Daily Record.