Ambulances fail to arrive on time for nearly 80% of serious and life-threatening calls in rural Cheshire

Aug 11 2011 by Gary Porter, Chester Chronicle

PARAMEDICS failed to arrive on time for nearly 80% of serious and life-threatening emergency calls in rural villages.

Figures released by North West Ambulance Service show how they continually failed to reach the Tarporley and Malpas areas in the eight-minute target response time between April 2010-11.

Cheshire East councillor Brian Silvester has called for urgent action from the service after describing the figures as ‘not acceptable’.

However, Eddisbury MP Stephen O’Brien believes they should not be too harshly judged as the key measure for remote rural areas has now changed to a 19-minute target time.

In the CW6 postcode area – which includes the likes of Tarporley, Kelsall and Bunbury – paramedics only reached 85 out of 395 calls within eight minutes.

Last December only one of 29 serious and life-threatening calls, known as category A8, were answered within eight minutes.

For the same 12-month period in the SY14 postcode area – which includes Malpas – just 28 out of 138 calls were answered in the target time.

In the CH3 postcode area – which includes the likes of Tarvin, Tattenhall and Farndon – 568 out 944 calls were answered on target, which is more than 60%.

Cllr Silvester said: “These are potentially life and death cases and such a poor performance is simply not acceptable.

“If local residents call for an ambulance in an emergency then they have a right to expect it to arrive within the response time that is required.”

Mr O’Brien added: “Whilst improvements have happened, problems persist with inconsistent response times. “My rural constituents deserve no less quality a service than anyone else.”

An NWAS spokesman said: “North West Ambulance Service is contracted to achieve an eight minute response for 75% of category A calls across the North West as a whole and not by individual postcodes, towns or cities.

“The Department of Health introduced changes to ambulance performance measures from April 2011 and since the end of May, we have been reporting our performance against these new standards.”