Ambulance Response Times Need Improving In Rural East Yorkshire
We've been speaking a man from Hull who's dad died of a heart attack and waited over half an hour for an ambulance.
A man from Hornsea who waited over 30 minutes for an ambulance to reach his dying dad says it's "unacceptable" that emergency response times in the East Riding are still falling below national standards.
Two years ago Iain Poole's father, Ray Poole, suffered a fatal heart attack.
Despite living just 450 yards away from their local ambulance station - Iain says it took over half an hour until paramedics turned up.
Only 40% of emergency calls were responded to within the target 8 minutes in rural East Yorkshire last year when the national target is 75%.
Iain told us:
"We didn't see an ambulance until about 45 minutes which by that time, dad had already passed and that's basically what is happening at the minute still. We stil can't get an ambulance if you need one anywhere in the rural area around East Yorkshire, you might be able to get a first responder but they can't adminter those vital drugs and that can make all the difference in those vital few minutes between someone living and dying.
"We need change, we need more ambulance crews otherwise god forbid it is going to be someone else's family member and I can tell everyone that isn't an experience you want to live through. Having to try and save your own father and failing, the guilt you feel thinking you've not done enough but also the anger of running for a service and expecting it to be there only to be let down in the worst possible way, it's something that's hard to live with.
"The ambulance that came to us came from Hull. Things just need to change. We have got an ambulance station in Hornsea and at the moment the teams that are manning these are pushed to breaking point and expected to cover bigger and wider areas and it's just ridiculous."
Beverley and Holderness MP Graham Stuart is calling for urgent improvements and questioned Yorkshire Ambulance Service chiefs in Parliament today.
He says he has been left “frustrated and extremely concerned” following the talks in Westminster.
Graham has now said he will take the issue directly to the Health Secretary:
“I left Yorkshire Ambulance Service chiefs in no doubt that they have to do more this year to improve performance in rural Holderness. The data disclosed on the eve of our meeting is frustrating and extremely concerning. We need to be clear: it is totally unacceptable that fewer than a quarter of emergency calls in Mid Holderness were answered in under eight minutes last September, when the national target is for three quarters of them to be. I appreciate the challenges of serving the East Riding are greater than in big towns and cities but the trends are getting worse, not better.
“This has gone on for long enough and I will now raise YAS’ performance directly with the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.”
Yorkshire Ambulance Service say they're currently recruiting more frontline paramedics to help tackle poor response times.
Mark Inman, Head of Emergency Operations (Hull and East Riding) at Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said:
“We aim to reach all of our patients as quickly as possible, particularly in rural parts of our region like the East Riding of Yorkshire, where sparsely dispersed populations present particular challenges for all emergency services.
“In addition, we have the added challenge of needing more frontline staff to join the Trust. There is a widely documented national shortage of paramedics and we are currently running a recruitment campaign in the Hull and East Riding area for additional paramedics and emergency care assistants.
“We continue to work hard to make further improvements to our response times in the East Riding (which in the 2015-16 year-to-date for Red calls to life-threatening emergencies is 65.5%). It is important to remember that they are not the only measure of the care we provide. We remain focused on delivering safe and high quality services to the people of Yorkshire."