A teenager died when an ambulance arrived 'three minutes too late' after he suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.
The 18-year-old was one of dozens of people in the West Midlands who might have lived if crews were not held up for hours at hospitals, an ambulance boss claims.
Mark Docherty, Executive Director of Nursing and Commissioning for West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS), made the shock claim before he visited the family of the teenager who tragically lost his life.
He said: "We were there three minutes too late to save him."
The young man, whose identity has not been revealed, had suffered a cardiac arrest while out with friends, reports Birmingham Live.
Mr Docherty believes he would have had a chance if paramedics had reached him sooner.
“I am visiting his family shortly. The notes about the case would make you cry," he said, his voice catching. "He knew he was in trouble."
"He told his friends ‘I've got a funny feeling’ and laid down on the ground, he knew that something was going to happen. And we just didn't get there on time", Mr Docherty said.
Category 1 'threat to life' 999 calls should ideally be reached within a target time of seven minutes, with a margin of up to 15 minutes.
Mr Docherty added: “A fit 18-year-old would probably stand a very, very good chance of survival, but we were there three minutes too late, which in cardiac arrest makes a massive difference.
"I know the family will ask what we are doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and the truth is I don't know what else we can do."
It was a tragic example of the impact of having too many ambulance crews 'stacked up' outside overstretched hospitals waiting to offload patients so they can get back on the road. West Midlands Ambulance Service says the delays remain very long and persistent, despite promises of urgent action.
Thousands of ambulance hours are being lost every week because vehicles are routinely parked beyond the 30 minutes expected for the safe handover of a patient, with delays often stretching to hours. It has been claimed those delays are having a knock-on impact on response times.
Mr Docherty says his data analysis work had identified 72 local people in a year who he believed had died due to ambulance response delays. Earlier this week, the issue was raised at a WMAS Board meeting.
At that meeting, emergency services operations delivery director Nathan Hudson said: "I want to say a big sorry, really sorry to the patients and also some of their families about our response (times) currently because it's not adequate, it's atrocious that we are in this current position."
Mr Docherty said that the situation was having a crushing impact on ambulance control staff and paramedics, who were often seeing and hearing first-hand the impact of delays. Patients and families were having to call back, often repeatedly, to chase up ambulances.
Sometimes that meant that control room staff were hearing people utter their final words as they deteriorated waiting for help to get to them. "It is very distressing to listen to a call from a patient who, by the time we reach them, is dead. We hear the last words they utter."
Concerns are said to have been building over hospital handover times for several months, but the situation has not improved despite the efforts of hospitals.
A spokesperson for NHS in the Midlands said: "NHS staff have gone above and beyond over the last year contending with record levels of A&E attendances and ambulance call-outs, all while treating hundreds of thousands of seriously ill Covid patients.
"Anyone needing NHS help should come forward through 111 online so staff can help with the best option for your care, or call 999 for a life-threatening emergency."
Systems across the region are also being supported in the following ways:
- Working to develop and implement a policy to ensure ambulance services can immediately hand over a patient to ED if there is a risk to a patient in the community and there is no ambulance available in the area to respond;
- Developing action plans to share risk across whole systems so patients can be handed over quickly and reduce delays;
- Working to make sure patients who do not need the Emergency Department are seen appropriately elsewhere within the NHS;
- Making sure systems work together to discharge patients when appropriate to keep capacity available for those who need to be admitted.
