Overstretched paramedics’ response times shocker

Aug 9 2009 by Alison Dayani, Sunday Mercury

WEST Midlands Ambulance Service is at crisis point, with over-stretched paramedics failing to get to almost HALF of life or death emergencies within the government target of eight minutes.

Official response times to high priority 999 calls have seen an alarming slump since May.

NHS West Midlands officials are closely monitoring the situation.

Ambulance chief executive Anthony Marsh has blamed swine flu and an “unprecedented” surge in calls, which are 20 per cent up on this time last year.

He is hoping an independent review being carried out will force local health trusts to give the service more cash and could lead to more ambulances on the streets.

He said chiefs were staggered by 71,571 people inundating the control room in July compared to 59,595 in the same month last year.

But the increase has led to callouts for urgent Category A calls deteriorating and breaching government targets to alarming levels since May 11.

Government rules say that paramedics must reach at least 75 per cent of the most serious calls within eight minutes.

But figures show that for the West Midlands service that fell to as low as 43.7 per cent in Birmingham and the Black Country at the beginning of July and has remained below 57 per cent since then.