REPUBLISHED from HU12 Online – will be of interest based on an experience last year when residents were concerned at the amount of time it took for an ambulance to respond to a road traffic accident on New Road, Hedon.
TWO ADDITIONAL rapid response vehicles are to “regularly roam” the Holderness area in order to tackle poor ambulance response rates in the area with one starting from Hedon
Following a Freedom of Information request Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) has confirmed that an operational alert was issued on the 19th November 2013 introducing the new roaming vehicles.
Every day two additional rapid response vehicles from Hull will be required to regularly roam the area. One will travel from Beverley through to Withernsea via Hornsea and then back towards Hull, whilst the second vehicle will run the same route but in reverse and starting from Hedon.
A rapid response vehicle is a car used by a paramedic, emergency medical technician or an emergency care practitioner to get to a patient quickly.
The YAS operational alert notice states that “historical data has evidenced that a considerable number of R1 and R2 responses have not been achieved specifically in the Withernsea, Hornsea and Hedon areas.”
Red Calls (R1 and R2) are those that are classified as immediately life threatening and require an emergency response (with blue lights). The target is to arrive at these patients within eight minutes in 75% of cases.
The operational alert continues: “It is essential that the resources are mobilised to follow this standby route constantly throughout the day. This instruction is subject to on day demand and conditions at the discretion of the duty ROC manager.”
The management team leader at the YAS response centre in York will review the resources available on a daily basis with the manager of the Regional Operations Centre and between them will determine which rapid response vehicles will be used.
The move has come following concerns at the poor ambulance response rates in the Holderness area, and it is anticipated that the situation will improve.
Vince Larvin, Locality Director of Emergency Operations at YAS NHS Trust, said in November last year: “Our priority is to deliver high quality services to people in Yorkshire and the Humber and fundamental to this is having the right resources in the right place at the right time.
“We have recently carried out a Trust-wide review which has identified that by better matching our resources to patient demand, particularly during evening and weekend periods, we will be able to provide extra emergency cover and reach patients more quickly more of the time.
“In the East Riding, the review suggested that it would be beneficial to have extra resources in this area, specifically more rapid response vehicles operated by fully-qualified clinicians, which will improve response times and further enhance patient outcomes.
“As a result of this review, we are currently discussing proposals to make changes to our operational model with staff.”
