The Gloucestershire Echo
NORTHLEACH, England — Undertaker Albert Collins was amazed when an ambulance chief turned up to apologise for his hour-long wait after a road accident.
The 50-year-old Northleach funeral director endured an agonising wait for an ambulance after a deer ran into his motorbike on the A40.
The accident, near the town on May 22 at 6.51am, left him lying with five broken ribs, a punctured lung and internal bleeding.
Following him complaining publicly about the delay, Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust sent Gloucestershire’s locality director, Philip De Bruyn, to patch up the issue, which he put down to “human error” as a priority back-up message was missed.
Mr Collins (right) said: “It was nice to see a face from the ambulance service and Mr De Bruyn explained what had gone wrong, which was nice.
“But, in all honesty, a letter would have been just as good.
“I was bemused and found it very bizarre to get a personal visit. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to apologise. Do they go round every time an ambulance is late?”
He praised the emergency care practitioner who was on the spot in a rapid response vehicle in 15 minutes, and the ambulance crew, when they arrived, which he described as “first-class”. He said: “The rapid response paramedic couldn’t let go of me as she was concerned I had a spinal injury and then my leg started to go numb which worried both of us. It was then she realised time had gone on and she called for back-up.”
Mr De Bruyn also sent a letter, which said a priority two back-up call was missed by the dispatcher and duty shift manager until the rapid response vehicle contacted the Emergency Operations Centre for an estimated time of arrival at 7.44am. He wrote: “The findings of our internal investigation have attributed the cause of this oversight down to human error and appropriate action has been taken accordingly.
“I hope these findings and actions go some way towards satisfying you that we have taken your concerns seriously and have acted on our findings in the interest of avoiding a repeat of the same beh- aviour.”
GWAS spokesman John Oliver said: “When people raise concerns about our service, we take them very seriously. Having looked into the circumstances of this incident, we wrote to the patient to explain and to offer our genuine apologies.
“We make no apology for the fact that our locality director for Gloucestershire felt it appropriate to meet the patient in person.”
Copyright 2009 Gloucestershire Echo
All Rights Reserved