To receive a presentation from Lee Brentall, Ambulance Operations Manager, East Midlands Ambulance Service.

A presentation was received from Lee Bentall, Ambulance Operations Manager, East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS), the purpose of which was to outline EMAS’s future vision and strategy.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·         EMAS had an excellent reputation for the quality of care they delivered.

·         46-50% of people who rang 999 were conveyed to hospital. Of the remaining 50%, 15% were triaged over the phone and 35% were offered alternative pathways so that they could remain at home.

·         Reviews were being undertaken to see if there were gaps within pathways so those that were currently going to A & E could go elsewhere.

·         Due to the national shortage of paramedics, EMAS were developing their own staff.

·         The service would be looking at opportunities to share estate with other blue light partners.

·         EMAS’s relationship with the 111 service needed to be developed further to ensure that patients accessed the most appropriate care. The LLR area had one of the highest conversions from the 111 service to A&E.

·         As part of the ‘Restart a Heart’ campaign EMAS were actively pushing for more community defibrillators and training. Mr Bentall would provide information on the current defibrillator offers to the Governance Officer so that it could be distributed and promoted to all Parish Councils in Rutland.  

·         Once used, the community defibrillators were taken away by ambulance staff as the storage card contained information which was reviewed by the Community Response Officer and passed over to the patients care record. New batteries and pads were also fitted and the device delivered back to the community the next day.

·         Paramedics had been doing some trial work around sepsis which involved giving an antibiotic as soon as possible, either at home or en route to hospital.

·         When calls were received by the service they were placed in one of four priority categories, each of which had an expected response time. Success or failure of the calls was based on adherence to these timings and not the level of care received so for example, a patient reached in 7 minutes and 59 seconds who subsequently died was recorded as a success whereas a patient reached in 8 minutes and 1 second who received excellent care and survived was recorded as a fail.

·         Members expressed concern over the number of elderly people who were left for excessively long periods of time after a fall as they were not deemed a priority.

·         EMAS would be undertaking a piece of work to investigate how they could get to people on the floor and relieve them of their pain. Within the new standards people who had fallen were likely to spend up to two hours waiting but call operators could escalate the call if the situation deteriorated.

·         Hospital turnaround times for ambulance crews was a national issue and dialogue and collaboration was happening at all levels to try and address the problem. By looking at alternative pathways to alleviate pressure on A&E, there had been an improvement on last year in LLR. Within the 5 area divisions of EMAS, LLR had the highest rate of conveyance to an alternative pathway.

·         Members questioned how confident EMAS could be in making their vision a reality in light of the logistics involved in coordinating all the different services across different counties, as many Rutland residents looked to Peterborough for their care.

·         In terms of absolute emergencies the service worked but changing the focus to deliver services locally would put additional pressures on for example, social services and district nurse services. However where there were services available EMAS would need to have the opportunity to place within them.

RESOLVED:

1.    The Panel NOTED the presentation on the future vision and strategy of the East Midlands Ambulance Service.