Ambulance services in England have been given a strong endorsement for the way they deal with people who have non-urgent medical problems. Survey results released by the Care Quality Commission show that most of those who responded to the survey had a positive experience of the way they were looked after by the emergency ambulance service.
It was the first national survey targeted specifically at people whose conditions were assessed by ambulance call handlers as Category C - defined as non-urgent or non-life-threatening. Seventy-three per cent of respondents rated the overall care they were given as “excellent”, while a further 25% said it was “good” or “very good”.
As well as showing that the great majority of people were content with the overall care they received, the survey found they were also positive about waiting times and how staff dealt with them at the scene.
According to the latest data, Ambulance Trusts across the country have also significantly reduced the time taken to reach patients – 74.3% of the most urgent calls (Category A) were responded to in less than 8 minutes from a call being received.
While this is below the target for 75% of Category A calls to be responded to within 8 minutes, changes in the way response times are measured mean that ambulances are actually reaching patients faster than before. Last year, ‘Call Connect’ was introduced, meaning that the clock starts from the moment a call is connected to the control room – previously it would not have started until details had been taken from the caller. This means that on average, ambulances must reach patients 90 seconds faster than under the old system.
