Long waiting times for ambulances on the Isle of Wight has led to the recent death of a resident, it has been revealed.
The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has said it is investigating the incident.
It came to light in a report to the trust’s board this month as the health body continues to struggle with ambulance capacity issues. The trust has said demand for ambulance services is currently exceeding its available capacity and has led to it failing to meet national response time targets.
In January, ambulance responses to category 1 (life-threatening) calls averaged 9 minutes and 25 seconds — the target is 7 minutes. Responses to category 2 (emergency) calls were 28 minutes and 31 seconds — the target is 18 minutes.
These times are the lowest they have been in four months but the demand is still causing the ambulance service to struggle and the trust is currently investigating a death associated with a long wait for an ambulance.
In December, the category two response times hit a high, with an average of 39 minutes and 45 seconds, which is double what it should be. The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has apologised to anyone who has been affected by the service pressures.
A trust spokesperson said:
“We want to assure Islanders we are doing everything we can to continue to improve.”
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The trust has said it invested in additional ambulances and recruited to ensure it can keep as many crews on the road as possible.
The increased capacity, it said, helped significantly, improving response time from some of the worst in the country in 2020 to among the best this year. In the last 12 months, the trust has received more than 28,500 calls and a 25% increase in ambulance call-outs on the Island over the past 3 years.
Surges still remain the service’s biggest challenge, the trust revealed, as it responds to an average of 86 call-outs a day but during busy periods this can rise to 115 or more. The trust recognised “despite the improvement, there is still more to do”.
Recently, the trust has introduced a rapid response vehicle and deployed ambulance community first responders as well as fire and rescue volunteer responders, acting as an alternative to dispatching an ambulance.
If the conservatives win the next election response times will end up a lot worse than they currently are. Vote for them at your peril.
True, but I’m sure they’ll give us plenty of reasons as to why they’re not to blame.
Labor did this to us!
And if Labour win they will eventually run out of other peoples money.
Masters of stating the obvious. Guess lessons will be learnt too?
And their thoughts and prayers blah blah blah
Long ambulance waiting times long doctors appointment waiting times long waiting times for operations at hospitals long referral times for treatment and then if you don’t have the money for a vital operation not covered by the NHS they just let you die unless you raise the funds.
At least you can use freedom of movement to easily get care by quickly becoming a resident in other EU countries… oh, wait, no you can’t 😀
But that’s not the hospitals fault, is it?
Granted, St Mary’s has its faults, but lack of GP appointments, long waiting times for appointments at hospitals, ambulance response times and other problems alike, are all down to the lack of funding and low morale within the NHS. With the Conservative party still in power, things will only get worse.
No – the problem is an increase in the population – less people, less pressure, reduction in waiting times – not difficult is it.
kick out all the illegals from hotels and run them out of the country, as tunisia is doing – then we will have less demand on the uk services.
YET three fire appliances turn up with a hoard of firemen to someone pouring bleach and limescale cleaner down a toilet, to open a window
Seems the fire service are overstaffed yet the ambulance crews are understaffed.
Too many newcomers filling our country who have paid nothing in yet all add to the burden of the NHS and the public purse which we all fund.
Who are the newcomers?
Come on, it is not necessarily the NHS Trust the is solely responsible for this. How about our fantastic, not, council that persists in allowing more and more houses to be built and then bringing in more and more people to fill them. I would suggest the relatives of the person highlighted should take legal action against the council for utter incompetence. Should win the case hands down.
It’s nothing to do with NHS – they work on what funding they have, its the complete an utter responsibility of our government who have continued to underfund services for the past decade.
What about that £350m/week for NHS dividend from Brexit? That should end up as approximately £1,400,000 a month for every public hospital in UK on top of normal funding, surely that helps a lot? ;)))))
Why don’t you move to an EU country you boring, predictable remoaner.
I’d love to,but because of Boris and his lies I can’t, we don’t have freedom of movement anymore.
Terry terry baby terry terry baby
You on drugs Stuart all you just a child
You can still apply to live in the EU, just as you can any other country. Freedom of movement only meant you didn’t have to show a passport at a border.
Nothing to do with remoaning. It was plastered on the side of Boris’ battle bus. Remember?
Another thick Brexiter who doesn’t realise that Brexit has removed the right for British citizens to “move to an EU country”.
So you are stuck with us “remoaners” rubbing your stupid thick Brexiter faces in the huge pile of excrement your idiocy has landed us in until the day you die.
Get used to it. you won.
Your invective is only bettered by your idiocy. So everyone that doesn’t agree with your blinkered views are thick. I would suggest you get an education so that you can actually think for yourself rather than believe all the nonsense that you have been fed by your woke mates. Just because the UK has left the EU does not mean that you can no longer go and live in an EU country. You just need to apply. Please do so, so that us “thick” Brexiteers can start to enjoy the freedom of non EU rule, and make something of the country without their interference. Get used to it, you lost.
It’s only predictable because, well, Brexiters told us we’re going to get it so I keep asking where is it, especially when NHS seems to be in trouble. I truly believe in that Brexit vote and eagerly awaiting those dividends to appear ;)))
Long response times are because A&E is often rammed because there’s a shortage of health professionals because of underfunding and poor pay because that is CONSERVATIVE POLICY.
Conservative voters: it WILL affect you at some point. Open your eyes – please!
I suppose it will be so much different under another party will it? History has shown it will not. Open YOUR eyes.
Don’t remember having any problems seeing a GP before the Tories took over in 2010.
Don’t remember not being able to even find an NHS dentist before 2010.
Like it or not, the state of the NHS is down to the Tories and the lack of dentists is also down to them with Brexit also causing so many E European dentists to leave.
Tories and Brexit. 90% of the woes currently affecting this country are down to one of both of those two things.
and I still don’t have any problem seeing a GP or a dentist – so no, brexit and tories have not been the cause.
The Paramedics on the Island are brilliant.
Couldn’t agree more, they do an amazing job, and usually with great humour. Seen them at work too many times unfortunately.
What should be mentioned are the large number of hoax calls which can tie up a crew for hours.
£33.9 Billion more for the NHS 2023/4 from the government.
Can’t see how that can be translated into Tories running down the service.
The NHS is a bottomless pit of waste for so many reasons and no amount of funding will fix it.
It is badly run by an army of administrators who make a very lucrative salary with a golden pension out and they are not accountable to anyone. If they do a bad job they just get sidelined and maybe moved onto looking at pronoun badges and such.
It will never get better under any government unless it it torn down and started again.
You know the likes of the ERG (the Tory architects of Brexit) want us to move to a US style healthcare system, don’t you. They want this because they can make a huge (and I mean £billions) amount of money out of it.
Just like they did out of Brexit.
Their basic MO is to gaslight the population until they vote the way they want you to, then gaslight you some more to convince you the problems they caused are due to anything other than them (foreigners and benefit claimants are the usual goto for them).
If they get you way, you will be paying £800 or more a month in insurance premiums just to get the kind of service you get from the NHS right now. They will tell you it’s good value for money.
And you will believe them.
I’ve spent more than £800 this month on dentist and physio as after paying in for 50 years the NHS could not find me a dentist or a physio after a recent accident. No, I did not call an ambulance….
smiffy the champagne socialist that champions the poor, whilst apparently being loaded.
give it a rest smiffy – there is no nobility in poverty
perhaps if there were more charges for services, then it would get rid of the benefit spongers that have nothing better to do all day, than clog up the a and e departments.
NHS budget is £150b so half of your figure – roughly £15b – is just covering the 10% inflation alone to keep service running as-is… and that’s only for 2022.
If inflation keeps this level in 23/24 then it’ll be another £18b so… £15b+£18b=£33b and so this ENTIRE FIGURE will be eaten just by inflation of year 22 and 23.
In summary, this is nothing, no change, status quo, as-is: do not expect improvements or you’ll be disappointed.
(You know what easy thing we could do to save us 4% on inflation that would cost us £0 and no time at all? NOT brexiting :D)
How many of these delays are down to Island Roads blocking off entire roads, often with no obvious work occurring?
None I imagine. More like lack of staff and ambulances.
UK spends 20% less per capita on healthcare than average over EU14 countries.
Healthcare spend per capita isn’t a good measure. The United States spends $11,000 per capita compared to our $4,300.
And the US have millions dying of fully treatable diseases because they can’t afford the treatment. They have people going bankrupt to pay for their own cancer treatment.
They have people have cancer return dying because they are already bankrupt from the first treatment.
The reason is pretty simple. The NHS is huge and has massive financial muscle when it comes to dealing with drug and medical equipment companies. They can get the best prices (Insulin cost the NHS a tenth the price US private healthcare companies pay for it, for example).
The US style insurance based healthcare is probably one of the least efficient in the world. Everyone wants a cut. By the time your insurer, the drug companies, the private hospital, the private ambulance, the private GP, etc, have taken a cut less than a 10th is spent on actual healthcare.
That’s before you get to what doctors are paid in the US. A US Family Doctor (GP) earns $300,000 a year. That’s £244,000.
A UK GP gets £80k ($98,000)
This is why the junior doctors who are currently taking industrial action are in a win-win situation.
They get their pay award : win.
The don’t get their pay award, they keep striking, NHS collapses. They all go private : win.
My husband was left lying injured on the ground for over two and a half hours, catagorised as non-urgent. He had a bleed on the brain and we nearly lost him.