News from the Public Accounts Committee

Ambulance line up blue sky

On Monday, 20th March the Public Accounts Committee, met to discuss the recent national Audit Office report into ambulance services in England. The committee, which is made up of a number of MPs heard from Chris Wormald, Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health, Professor Keith Willett, Medical Director for Acute Care at NHS England, Rod Barnes, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, and Miles Scott, Improvement Director at NHS Improvement.

The discussion covered a number of topics including the existing targets, the national ambulance response programme, handover delays at hospitals, demand on the service, staffing levels, funding and commissioning amongst other things. Whilst there was agreement that targets were generally a good thing, the discussion was around the need for them to be clinically credible and sensitive. Tied up in this was that too many people ended up as “Red” call patients when they don’t need an immediate 8 minute response.

They talked in detail about the national ambulance response programme (ARP) which has been running for about 18 months and seen millions of 999 calls go through it. The programme has been looking at a number of targets and measures including: the performance of the ambulance service, efficiency of utilisation of emergency crews, clinical outcomes for patients and the experience of staff working in different systems. A report on the programme is expected to be presented to the Minister in the next six weeks. The services that are going through the ambulance response pilot are currently modifying their fleet of vehicles to fit with the programme. As a response to the changing dispatch model, they have seen a requirement for more double-staffed ambulances and fewer rapid-response vehicles.

If the ambulance response programme is accepted it is likely that it will be rolled out in sequence in ambulance services before the autumn. To ensure system resilience, it will be rolled out to ambulance services one at a time. Alongside this will be a recommendation that there should be a framework for commissioning of ambulance services that will be consistent across the country. It is expected that this new framework will be in place from April next year.

Professor Keith Willett also talked about the ambulance service having the best vantage point of the whole urgent health and social care system and being in the best place to lead transformation in the future. The committee ended by thanking ambulance staff for their work and the difference they make every day for patients.

If you would like to see the full video, click here.

Published 31st March, 2017

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