Skip to content

Click here to read our Christmas update

National Association of Women's Clubs logo
  • Home
  • About
    • What We Do
    • History
    • Meet The Team
  • Campaigns
  • Clubs
  • Join Us
  • Shop
  • Events
  • News
  • Contact
National Association of Women's Clubs logo
  • Home
  • About
    • What We Do
    • History
    • Meet The Team
  • Campaigns
  • Clubs
  • Join Us
  • Shop
  • Events
  • News
  • Contact
  • Back to Campaigns

Improve Ambulance turnaround time

“This Association in Conference assembled urges Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that ambulances bringing a sick or injured patient to hospital are ready to return to duty in no more than 30 minutes”

Selnec Association,

2014

At present the target is 15 minutes but sadly these targets are often missed.  If you go to A&E under your own steam you are seen by a Triage Nurse who assesses the urgency of your condition and prioritises you accordingly. People brought in by ambulance are not dealt with in this way. They have to be handed over to a member of the medical staff, and until that happens the paramedics and therefore the ambulance cannot leave. Meanwhile any one of us may be in direct need of an ambulance.  In 2013-2014 there was nearly 300,000 ambulances delayed for more than 30 minutes, of which 30,601 were for more than an hour.  This is because the system in place was not working.  According to our research around the country, the waits vary from 1 hour 59 minutes in Scotland to 6 hours 22 minutes in Wales. Imagine the paramedics sitting or in some cases standing around for that long and then expected to be fully efficient.

There was a 74 year old man who in spite of a fully staffed ambulance service waited 43 minutes and died in agony, this story made the headlines but many more do not. There are many instances of fatalities due to late arrival of ambulances because the present system is failing. Surely in the 21st century when we can replace knees and hips, transplant lungs, hearts and so on, a better solution can be found for the problems associated with the arrival of late ambulances.

As with everything bringing in more staff or ambulances to make the situation improve will no doubt cost money, which the NHS says it does not have within its budget. Well here is one suggestion how to cover some additional costs.  It has been reported that a woman has received more than £522, 379 after suffering post traumatic stress disorder due to the delay by the ambulance reaching her – it took 50 minutes to arrive.  That money could have been put to good use to speed up the system if the ambulance had been on time. If everyone sued the figure that could be awarded in compensation could be staggering!

Reply from:- Dept of Health – Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries Unit
To help support the integration of services at the point of a patient’s arrival at A&E in an ambulance, NHS England state that all handovers between an ambulance and A&E Dept take place within 15 mins, and crews to be ready to accept new calls within a further 15 mins. There must be a contractual fine for all delays over 30 mins, in both situations, and a further fine for delays over an hour. The Dept of Health continues to work with ambulance services, acute trusts and commissioners to see what more can be done to improve handovers. Maintaining responsive urgent and emergency care services across the country is a priority for this Government.  That is why the Department set the expectation that ambulance trusts will work towards responding to 75 per cent of Category A Red 1 (immediately life-threatening) and Red 2 (serious but less immediately time critical) calls within 8 minutes and to respond to 95% of Category A calls within 19 minutes of a request being made for a fully equipped ambulance vehicle (car or ambulance) able to transport the patient in a clinically safe manner. The Dept see the national standard, and the wider Clinical Quality Indicators, as positive instruments in enabling ambulance services across the country to share consistent framework for self-assessment, peer review and more formal control processes. The standards are not intended to be strict targets but measures which not only highlight those trusts that are delivering the standards of care expected by the patients, but also those trusts who need support in improving the quality of their services.  The Government has provided an additional £50 million to ambulance services. However NHS ambulance services are facing unprecedented levels of demand and are undertaking an additional 2000 emergency journeys a day.  Despite this, they are still providing high quality care.

National Association of Women's Clubs logo white

Quick Links

  • Home
  • History
  • Shop
  • Join Us
  • News

INFORMATION

  • What We Do
  • Clubs
  • Events
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

get In Touch

  • The Army Reserve Centre, 312 London Road, Romford, Essex RM7 9NH
  • 01708 730805
  • nawc@btconnect.com
  • Follow Us

© 2020 NAWC. All Rights Reserved | Charity No. 273397 | Website by Space Five

This website uses cookies to improve your experience and provide statistics on site use. Find out moreACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview


This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

December Update

2020 is a year none of us will forget in a hurry but as it draws to a close we would like to update you with the current situation as far as Head Office is concerned. The office is now closed until after Christmas but Claire, our secretary, is working from home.

It has been a very strange year with no events, no clubs, no getting together. All our events had to be cancelled, and though we are no different to any other organisation it has been such a pity because this is what we are about friendship, education and fun. On the positive side we have worked hard getting out letters to as many members as we could with the help of club officials. They have been brilliant keeping in touch with their members through emails, ‘WhatsApp’ and phone calls they all deserve a star!

With the moving into different tiers it sometimes gets very confusing and loneliness has been talked about a lot on the television and the media but we hope through the clubs this has not affected our members too much. With the hope of a vaccine it might not be too long before we are back and enjoying our club life again and remember after December 21st the days start to get longer and Spring will be around the corner.

Here at Head Office Eleanor retired at the end of September, Eleanor had told us of her plans at the beginning of the year so we had plenty of notice but of course we could not have the retirement party she was entitled to. However, we are hoping she will come to conference next year and we can say farewell properly. We did send flowers on the day and Mary, our treasurer made her a collage of all our good wishes, and it was beautiful.

If you are looking at our website for the first time look at the list of clubs and see if we have one near you, they are friendly places to go to. Most meet once a week with speakers, demonstrations and outings. Each club is different and if there isn’t one in your area, why don’t you start one!  We honestly think our sort of club is just what the women of our country needs right now.  We are a non-political, non-religious and non- sectarian group that offers friendship and interest. Take a look at this website and see what we have to offer.

So Christmas is coming and what a difference to the one we probably envisaged, but remember ladies we might not be able to party as we have in the past but if we keep safe we can celebrate next year with family and friends. 

So on behalf of The Committee to all our members and whoever is looking at this website, we wish you all a Merry Christmas, keep well and let’s look forward to a better New Year.