999 programme ‘not worth seeing’

Paul Bates, chief executive of NHS Worcestershire, said it was not worth interrupting his wife who was watching EastEnders on the other side to see the ITV Tonight programme 999 Out of Time.

His remarks were prompted by a series of questions by Coun Howard Eeles, a Wyre Forest district councillor, who asked whether ambulance staff responding to the most serious, category A 999 calls in Worcestershire such as heart attacks, strokes and major road accidents, always had a paramedic with them.

Mr Bates has been critical of West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust in the past over its failure to get to 999 calls fast enough, particularly the most serious, life-threatening 999 calls within eight minutes.

Mr Bates, who addressed a meeting of the NHS Worcestershire board, said: “It was a strange programme that didn’t justify me stopping my wife from seeing EastEnders. It wasn’t put together well.

“I think the programme will have heightened public concern about whether this is happening in our ambulance service.”

The programme, which criticised South West Ambulance Service in particular, highlighted the consequences of employing ambulance crews with lower levels of training, particularly the use of emergency medical technicians instead of more highly qualified paramedics.

Simon Hairsnape, director of delivery at NHS Worcestershire, said at the moment that 70 per cent of all frontline staff attending an emergency in Worcestershire would have a paramedic among them but that all responders would have at least one paramedic within the next three years.

He said emergency care assistants would be offered training so they could become paramedics.

Coun Eeles said: “It is a serious concern that people with this level of skill are attending as a first responder. Emergency care assistants should not be a first response.”

• Your Worcester News was the only member of the media to attend the meeting.