Agenda item

Mr Luke Squibb, Senior Locality Manager (Interim) – North Cambridgeshire, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust will be in attendance to present an update to Members on the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

Mr Luke Squibb, Senior Locality Manager – North Cambridgeshire, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust was in attendance to present an update to the Panel on the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

Mr Squibb’s presentation covered the following areas: Key Facts, what the EEAST do well, Call Volume, Hospital Delays, what the impact of the delays, what EEAST are doing about the delays, what else can be done, 111 in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and what does the future hold for EEAST.

The Panel were informed that the EEAST is the only regional ambulance service provider, there is a high conversion rate of 111 to 999 calls in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Red 1 performance across EEAST is above the national average with North Cambridgeshire the 8th highest performance area in the Trust.

Members were informed that on average there are six ambulances working a day shift to cover Huntingdon, St Neots and St Ives and that over last four weeks nearly 200 hours of ambulance availability has been lost at Hinchingbrooke as a result of delayed handovers. When a Member asked about why there were delays at Hinchingbrooke, the Panel were informed that it is a smaller hospital which does not have enough resources to process patients quick enough.

Mr Squibb informed Members that the impact of these delays is that if a major incident happens then it would significantly challenge the resilience of the service.

The Panel were informed of the Early Intervention Vehicle (EIV) pilot. This scheme is funded and run by EEAST on a trial basis. The trial proved that 150% more patients can safely remain in their own home following a fall without the need for a hospital conveyance, if attended and assessed by the EIV. It is estimated that this scheme has the potential to save the system £3m if additional funding is secured and it becomes operational 12 hours per day, 7 days a week..

Members welcomed the presentation, the preventative measures and the whole systems approach. A question was raised in regards to how the decision is made to which hospital the ambulance should go to. In response, the Panel were informed that the regional coordination centre will coordinate at peak times however, normally the ambulance would go to the nearest hospital with those equidistance choosing which hospital to go to themselves.

In response to the question, is there a process to reduce ambulance waiting times, Members were informed that there is an escalation measure to ensure ambulances are not waiting too long. The key is making people aware and if an ambulance is delayed for 2 hours the situation can get escalated to NHS England.

A question was asked what happened if the IT systems fails, in response the Panel was informed that there are regular testing on paper as well as three different control centres in the region which could take over if IT at one centre fails.

Mr Squibb invited Members to ride out in one of the Emergency Ambulance Crews if they wish.

(At 8.38pm, after the discussion of this item, Councillor Mrs P A Jordan left the meeting and did not return.)