Print articleWrite a commentView comments Flintshire ambulance times have got worse since centralisation Published date: 29 July 2013 | Published by: Robert Doman Read more articles by Robert Doman Email reporter AMBULANCE response times have failed to improve following controversial station closures – leading to claims the centralised system “isn’t working”. Ambulance stations in Mold, Holywell, Queensferry and Flint were scrapped in favour of a single depot at Dobshill last October. But figures seen by the Leader show a drop in response times to the most urgent - or category A - emergency calls in the months since. The percentage of Flintshire ambulances responding to emergency calls within eight minutes ranked the lowest in North Wales in six of the eight months since Dobshill’s Area Ambulance Centre began operating. Dobshill locality manager Jo-Ann Dyson said the closure of community hospitals has also put a strain on the service in Flintshire. She told a Flintshire Council social and healthcare scrutiny committee meeting that the service experienced “an excellent result” in June when 60.1 per cent of category A calls were responded to within the eight minute target time. The Welsh Government target is 65 per cent. But Queensferry councillor David Wisinger said: "As far as I can tell, the old service was a better service. "They may have been older vehicles and buildings but the new system seems not to be working." Mrs Dyson said demand on the service in Flintshire had “increased dramatically” and that the closure of community hospitals “has had a knock on effect and put extra strain on our resources”. “Having left traditional ambulance stations for Dobshill, we have to ensure we have a robust deployment plan,” she said. “We can more or less say where the demand for calls will come from due to our research. “Response times have shown a steady improvement in recent months.” The figure for June was the first time the service had breached the 60 per cent mark since the service transferred to Dobshill, something it had achieved four times in the nine months prior to the move. “We cannot offload quick enough to cope with the increasing demand,” Mrs Dyson said. Mrs Dyson did however point out that “horrendous figures” of patients waiting more than two hours in ambulances outside hospitals have all but disappeared with the number of patients being seen within 15 minutes of arrival “significantly increasing”.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:07:45 +0000