Moves to improve response times
Moves to improve response times
0 Comments | Nottingham Evening Post, Jul 22, 2010
AMBULANCE bosses in Notts are to suspend all non-essential training in a bid to improve response times to emergency calls.
East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) is the only trust of its kind in the country not meeting its target for immediately life- threatening calls, classed as category A. So far this financial year its crews have only got to 74.4 per cent of these Category A calls in eight minutes.
EMAS has now been issued with a performance notice by NHS trusts in the region, meaning it must come up with an improvement plan.
A spokesman for the ambulance trust admitted it was not hitting its target for response times.
He said: “This masks the fact that despite our best efforts, some of our responses are outside the target time simply because we are responding to more 999 calls than in the past.
“At present, we are 0.7 per cent adrift of a target we must reach in eight months time.”
Actions to address the problem include staggering shift times to ensure more crews are available and suspending non-essential training.
We are responding to more 999 calls than we have in the past Trust spokesman