Under-fire ambulance service tries to drive up performance

Non-emergency ambulances, provided by the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, take over 100,000 patients to hospital appointments in the east of the region annually, but a review ordered by NHS East Riding and NHS Hull last year, found over a third ended up being late for their appointments.

A series of knock-on effects included hospitals having to pay for taxis due to ambulance delays or cancellations and staff having to stay on after their shifts to help patients find lifts home.

The latest statistics show that in May 180 patients from the East Riding were either late to appointments or had a long wait to get home - an improvement on March, when 477 people experienced delays, sometimes of over two hours.

Overall YAS said it achieved 97.85 per cent of three key standards – however they have to hit 100 per cent by September, or they could face seeing the service retendered.

To help improve they are working with a team from Unipart to help improve “operational effectiveness and ensure sustainable changes are made.”

The “Unipart way” of cost saving, while pushing up productivity, has been used with a wide variety of clients, including HMRC, for whom Unipart claims to have saved the taxpayer a staggering £970m.

In a report to an East Riding Council scrutiny committee, Amanda McInnes, head of service for Hull and East Yorkshire patient transport service said: “Patient Transport Services in Hull and East started the financial year with quite a challenge and opinion of both our commissioners and the public that we were failing to deliver the service we had been contracted for...in March we breached on 5.7 per cent of our journeys and we are acutely aware that some patients were experiencing very long waits for journeys home.” They accepted responsibility for half the delays in May - blaming the rest on road accidents, delays on wards, incorrect timings and delays caused by patients. They are now introducing a service to ring patients to let them know a driver is on their way to pick them up, and a service which rings 24 hours in advance to confirm the lift is still required.

Jane Evison, an East Riding councillor and chair of Holderness Area Rural Partnership, which has just recently started a contract with East Riding Council to provide patient transport from the Withernsea area to help YAS, said their service was getting infrequent referrals.

She said: “Frankly I think it is time that someone took that (the threat of the service being retendered) seriously. It seems a regular threat and nothing happens. To my mind the only person that suffers is the patient.” She added: “We are on average seeing something like one patient every two days which is an absolute nonsense, when we know they need to get their house in order.

“If their service is reliable why do they need to (ring people in advance)? This was something we offered a trial to see if we could help. The bottom line is we don’t want to muscle in or take anyone’s business. It was just an offer of help.”

Deputy Director of Operations for YAS David Williams said they had made “noticeable improvements” in non-emergency patient transport. He said: “We have implemented different ways of working and we are pleased with the progress we have made to date which has undoubtedly resulted in better experiences for our patients. The Trust has recently been working alongside Unipart which has led to some significant improvements in our patient transport service in the South Yorkshire area. As part of our commitment to sustaining and building upon the developments already made in the East Riding, we are extending our work with Unipart to look at ways in which the service in this area can operate more effectively and efficiently in the future.”