MP for Beverley and Holderness, Graham Stuart, today (Friday) said he was glad to hear the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust had been taken out of ‘special measures’ after improving response times.
In April this year the Care Quality Commission (CQC) imposed strict conditions on the Trust’s licence after it continued to fail to meet national response time targets.
Graham said: “The CQC was rightly concerned with the level of service the Ambulance Service was able to give to patients across Yorkshire. Managers have now addressed those failings and I am delighted to hear the Trust has effectively been taken out of special measures.”
And he added: “I hope the Trust will build on this progress and ensure that patients always receive the standard of care they are entitled to expect.”
The CQC today said Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has made sufficient improvement to emergency response times and it would now lift the condition it had imposed on the Trust’s licence.
CQC said the Trust must continue to maintain the improvement in respect of responding to category A calls (immediately life threatening) within eight minutes.
Conditions were imposed by the CQC on 1 April 2010, when it introduced a tough new registration system for NHS trusts. It was one of 22 trusts judged not to be meeting essential standards of quality and safety and registered on the condition that it made improvements.
At the time of registration, CQC was concerned the Trust had consistently failed to meet national targets on ambulance response times. In particular, it was failing to meet the target requiring ambulances to respond to 75% of Category A calls (life threatening situations) within eight minutes. It required the trust to take urgent action to ensure that by 31 October 2010 it was responding to emergencies defined as “immediately life threatening” promptly in line with national requirements so people who use the services receive safe and appropriate care, treatment and support.
To achieve the improvements managers at the Trust have introduced new rotas to improve staffing levels at times when most calls are received.
A system of using fast response vehicles, manned by paramedics, to get to incidents quickly before they are backed up by double crewed ambulances has also been introduced.
The latest figures for August showed the Trust was responding to 78.82% of Category A calls within eight minutes.
Graham added:
“The Trust has applied itself to the problem and has made welcome improvement. Rural areas tend to be the most neglected and I will be seeking an urgent meeting with the Chief Executive to congratulate him on the improvements but seek reassurance that Beverley and Holderness, as well as other sparsely populated rural areas, are receiving the same quality and attention as larger urban populations.”
Ambulance Responds to a call at Beverley Leisure Centre during the Molescroft Rangers game
