Agenda item

Paul Gates and Patrick Brooks, London Ambulance Service, was present and made a presentation to the Committee, copy interleaved.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         The LAS top compliant codes were 111 transfer 12.5%, falls 10.5%, HCP 9.9%, DIB 9.5%

·         Alcohol calls amounted to 5.8%

·         Category A8 response rate of 8 minutes was 65% in the year to date and the current target of 75% was currently being achieved in 10.20 mins

·         There had been a 5% increase in category A calls to date and Islington had the third best Category A performance in London despite having the third highest CAT 8 incidents in London

·         LAS has had 30 staff a month leaving since September 2014, previous to this it was 22 per month – main reasons for leaving pressure and volume of work, local management issues, lack of training and development, cost of living in London Borough of Islington

·         A number of measures have been put in place to improve capacity and decrease demand

·         There has been a large recruitment campaign in place across Europe, UK and Australasia for paramedics, introduced new clinical roles for ambulance staff, and nearly 200 staff will be joining the service between January and March

·         A number of other measures have been introduced to address staff resources

·         There is a 5 year strategy in place for developing and investing in staff, putting clinical standards and education at heart of what we do, etc..

·         Developing appropriate care pathways

·         There was partnership working with Islington on a number of programmes including alcohol and mental health and criminal justice liaison

·         The Chair stated that he had raised some specific cases for discussion and it was stated that because of patient confidentiality these could not be discussed that evening but the LAS could respond following the meeting if full details were supplied

·         It was noted that there had been delays in responding to calls due to the large number of vacancies but it was hoped that due to the recent recruitment campaign that improvements would be seen by the Summer. There had also been an increase in 999 calls with insufficient resources to deal with them

·         In response to a question as to whether calls were downgraded it was stated that calls were dealt with in a range of prescribed methods and dealt with in a similar manner to 111 calls

·         It was stated that the current training requirements for paramedics was restricted and the service had now procured additional staff and more approved training opportunities. In addition emergency ambulance crews were being made available that could deal with 90% of calls

·         Reference was made to the fact that the shift of a paramedic was 11.5/12 hours and that they worked a 37.5 hour weekly shift and overtime was in addition

·         In relation to the possible psychological trauma that could be suffered by ambulance staff it was stated that there was support and counselling in place from trained staff and also peer support

·         Alcohol accounted for approximately 8% of calls and Islington had a thriving night time economy which contributed to the high call out rate. LAS were working on an alcohol strategy and were doing public education talks at colleges and schools. LAS were also working with TfL, British Transport Police in order to try to identify where people were coming from in order to access the night time economy

·         The average service length for a paramedic was only now 5/6 years and the demographics of the service had changed

RESOLVED:

That the LAS respond to the Chair on the specific cases referred to above

The Chair thanked Paul Gates and Patrick Brooks for attending