WATCH: Safety watchdog 'looking into' North's ambulances
Health & Safety Executive could hold investigation over 'concerns raised.'
Last updated 4th Apr 2017
There's breaking news this morning as an MFR News investigation exclusively reveals that the health and safety watchdog's 'looking into concerns raised' about the North's ambulance service.
Whistleblowers are warning that 999-crews are being over-stretched by non-emergency transfers of hospital patients from Caithness General in Wick and Dr Gray's in Elgin, to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
A Caithness and Sutherland ambulance insider's told us: "Safety of both patients and ambulance service workers are being compromised by the system. The system they have in place at the moment is failing. The entire onus is being put on crews to paper over the cracks and it's putting them under extreme duress, stress, and fatigue, to keep on working even though they're unfit to work.
WATCH: Ambulance worker speaks out about fears for patient and personal safety...
"Even if crews are available, quite often they've worked a long shift like 12-hours, before even beginning the on-call shift, so being called out is then exposing the crew to fatigue, and they're quite often doing it under duress, because they're under the obligation to provide a service to the community.
"Regardless of crews' fatigue levels, some staff will not book off because they feel such a compulsion to provide a service to the community regardless of their own health and safety.
LISTEN: MFR News reader John Callan (left) brings you this 1pm report by MFR News reporter Bryan Rutherford (right) on MFR2 earlier...
"People are clipping the verge, people are crossing the white line, they're absolutely exhausted" WHISTLEBLOWER
"There seems to be no responsibility taken by management, who I believe should have a clear duty of care not to expose their staff to undue and excess levels of fatigue, by giving them tasks which are guaranteed to be taking them beyond 14 or 15 hours of continuous working, but all the responsibility seems to be on the crews themselves to declare themselves fatigued.
"When you reach a level of fatigue your performance declines rapidly, and yet we’ve got a job which involves providing clinical care to patients and driving, and quite often we’re at a stage that we’re not really safe to be driving.
"Every single one of my colleagues who I can think of have fallen asleep at the wheel or needed micro sleeps. I've known of staff who can only drive for 10-minutes at a time, before having to swap with their colleagues every ten minutes, because they're so fatigued.
"People are clipping the verge, people are crossing the white line, they're absolutely exhausted, but they're still feeling a compulsion and an obligation to carry on working, because they feel that they know to do otherwise is leaving their community without ambulance cover.
"It's very easy to make a mistake giving drugs when you're fatigued, or just to overlook a problem with a patient" WHISTLEBLOWER
"Driving at high speed under blue light conditions, it’s more down to good luck than good management that there’s not been a serious incident where people have been injured, potentially seriously injured or killed as a result of fatigue levels.
"On the clinical side, it's very easy to make a mistake giving drugs when you're fatigued, or just to overlook a problem with a patient. But staff are being put in these positions by a system that is failing them, and because the staff feel a moral obligation to be there for the patients, they're then putting themselves in a position of vulnerability, where if they do make a mistake, despite the fact that that circumstance has, in many ways, been forced on them, if they do crash a vehicle - injuring someone or even worse, killing someone - then they know the service will tell them they should have followed the fatigue procedure by booking themselves off.
The Health and Safety Executive is deciding whether to hold an investigation. A spokesperson told MFR News: "H.S.E. is currently looking into a concern raised regarding Scottish Ambulance Service. We're unable to comment further at this stage in our enquiries."
Meanwhile the Scottish Ambulance Service has, in a statement, admitted that 'staff are working harder than ever before' but insists it's 'supporting staff.'
MFR's news investigation has also uncovered that a Speyside ambulance is going unused because 999-crews are signing-off work exhausted.
A Moray ambulance worker, speaking anonymously, claims too many long-distance hospital transfers of non-emergency patients are stretching the staff: "The issues in Speyside with staff being fatigued...just in Dufftown station alone in the last six-months, the staff there have had to park up the ambulance for more than 1,000-hours when the ambulance has had to be stood down, because the staff have been working all day and all night, and then into the next day, and they just can’t go on any longer."
FULL STATEMENT FROM SCOTTISH AMBULANCE SERVICE:
'Inter hospital transfers from Caithness to Raigmore have been increasing and our staff are working harder than ever before.
'We have recently increased staffing in Wick, Thurso, Bettyhill, Kinlochbervie and Golspie which has allowed us to improve cover and reduce on call working.
'We are working with staff and their union representatives to develop the detailed shift patterns to support the increase in cover, improve staff experience and patient care.
'We want to build on this recent investment and are supporting our staff, staff representatives, NHS Highland and the local community to develop sustainable solutions to changing demand.
'We were grateful for the opportunity to meet with CHAT, NHS Highland and local Councillors in February to explore new ways of working to help reduce pressure on the Service. We look forward to the follow up meeting at the end of the month.'
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