By Rob Parsons
Nottingham Evening Post
NOTTINGHAM, England — Ambulances in Notts are responding more slowly to 999 calls because of new measures to make sure they are clean.
East Midlands Ambulance Service spent £300,000 to improve the state of its vehicles after failing two inspections by a health watchdog.
The measures included mandatory training courses and workers not being allowed to respond to calls if their vehicles were not clean enough.
But NHS officials say the changes have meant ambulances cannot respond to 999 calls as quickly.
A performance report written by NHS Nottingham City said they were “believed to have had a negative impact on response times and turnaround times at hospitals”.
Ambulance bosses say response times will speed up once crews are used to the new practices.
EMAS could have faced prosecution or a £50,000 fine if it had not reached standards set by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
In two previous visits, inspectors found “thick dirt” inside vehicles, a lack of hand-washing facilities and equipment being re-used.
But in January, the watchdog ruled the trust had “provided assurance that it had addressed all seven areas for improvement”.
In December and January, bad weather meant a surge in the number of calls — but slower response times due to icy roads.
Winter pressures
Ahmed Belim, EMAS general manager for Notts, said: “There have been winter pressures, so it is difficult to gauge what is attributable to the new measures.
“There will have been some slippage attributable to the new measures being put in place.
“With any new practice, to get it embedded takes a while. We are already seeing that change, crews are getting slicker as part of the process.”
Maurice Haslam, a paramedic and Unison representative, said EMAS was now having to meet standards for infection control and speed of response.
He said: “It will take longer now than it did before because the crews are working hard to achieve the standard set by the CQC.
“The challenge for the staff and the trust is to hit the performance targets set by NHS East Midlands and hit the other various standards set by the CQC. That is a challenge.”
The NHS report revealed EMAS is not hitting its target for getting a vehicle at the scene of 75% of “immediately life-threatening calls” within eight minutes.
The report said: “It will now require a high level of performance for the remaining months for EMAS to achieve the target for the year as a whole.”
Detailed performance figures for January have not yet been published.
But during “black ice Wednesday” on January 13, emergency services were praised for coping with a huge spike in demand.
South Notts was worst hit in the East Midlands by the icy conditions and officials admitted it was “all hands on deck”.
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