Gloucestershire Echo
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, England — Hospitals will be fined if they keep ambulances waiting to offload patients for longer than 20 minutes.
The policy, which comes into effect on Tuesday, has been introduced to improve waiting times at Gloucestershire’s two main hospitals.
Bosses at NHS Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust will be hit with a £95 fine if ambulances are kept hanging on for a second over 20 minutes - and another £95 if they are left waiting for an hour.
The fines will be collected by NHS Gloucestershire and given to the Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS), which operates ambulances that serve the county.
The scheme has been welcomed by Gloucestershire county councillor Andrew Gravells, who is also chairman of the committee which oversees GWAS.
He said: “We want ambulances on the road and not stacked up outside hospitals. If it takes something as drastic as fines to achieve that then so be it.”
If the Trust performs as badly as it did last month - when 364 ambulances were kept waiting at either Gloucestershire Royal or Cheltenham General - it would face an annual fine of more than £860,000.
Mr Gravells said ambulance handover delays were not unique to the county.
Yesterday, board members were told the Trust was hoping a new computer system will cut the number of ambulances waiting.
It will give staff in A&E advanced warning of when patients are due to arrive.
Trust chief executive Dr Frank Harsent told the meeting: “It will give us greater visibility of what’s coming down the road at us.”
Speaking after the meeting, Albert Weager, a member of Gloucestershire LINk, which gives the public a say on how healthcare is delivered, said: “If it’s being used as a sharp shock treatment then it may be beneficial. I would not want to see this going on for a long period of time. I hope the hospital will get its house in order.”
After the meeting, a spokeswoman for GWAS said all of its hospitals experience surges in demand, which can lead to ambulances waiting longer.
She said: “We continue to work with hospitals and our primary care trusts to identify ways to ensure patients receive timely, effective treatment.
“If our crews report to our control room they are experiencing delays in handing patients to hospitals, we have arrangements so ambulances can return to frontline operations as quickly as possible.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Gloucestershire said: “In recent months, improvements have been made in reducing delays in patients’ admissions to hospital. We will continue to monitor progress to ensure these improvements are maintained.
“The system under which financial penalties will apply for delays is a move to encourage improvement.”
Evelyn Barker, deputy chief executive and chief operating officer for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are working with our partners, especially GWAS, to take steps to minimise delays and to establish the reasons for them.
“We will be introducing a capacity management system in the next few months. Once this system is in place we will be able to prepare ourselves for ambulance arrivals and aim to have a trolley and a bay ready to receive the patient.
“We have nominated an individual to oversee the handover process and we anticipate these measures will reduce delays.”
Copyright 2010 Gloucestershire Echo