Inquest told ambulance took more than four hours to arrive
Tuesday 13th July 2010, 12:22PM BST.
A Mid Wales woman died after waiting more than four hours for an ambulance to come and take her to hospital, an inquest heard.
Lilian Morgan Evans-Coates, 73, of Tan yr Allt, Llanidloes, died from a haemothorax aneurysm on March 4 last year.
The hearing at Welshpool Town Hall yesterday was told Shropdoc had called for an ambulance to pick Mrs Evans-Coates up within four hours to be taken to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital for tests after complaining of feeling unwell.
But the ambulance failed to turn up in the allotted time, leading to the family calling 999 and paramedics arriving moments before she died at home.
The Wales Ambulance Service said on the day of the incident staffing levels in the call centre had been low and with hindsight, the incident could have been handled better.
Ian Smith, of the ambulance service, said: “Following the incident I compiled a report on what went wrong and the staffing levels were lower than normal that day due to sickness.
Logged
“There was a call from GP at Shropdoc who requested an ambulance to take the patient into the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital within four hours. The information was passed on to the control centre and was logged into the system.
“There were a number of emergency calls in Powys and we were unable to get to her within four hours.
“Since the incident changes have been made, including moving the Powys call centre to the West Wales room.”
Mr Smith added that had there been enough staff an ambulance from Machynlleth may have moved to cover Llanidloes.
Edward Coates, one of Mrs Evans-Coates’ sons, said he felt there had been a communication error within the service.
He added: “We keep reading about slow ambulance response times in Mid Wales and this proves the point.”
Peter Maddox, Powys coroner, recorded a verdict of death by natural causes, but said he hopes lessons had been learned.
“I -and I am sure Mrs Evans-Coates’ family – will hope that lessons have been learned and that steps have been taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
By Andrew Morris
UK News
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This system must be improved.
I don’t recall it being like this 30 years ago. So this is the future, is it? If so, give us the past, the way things used to be!
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I know what you mean, Matt. But one of the problems is that demand for the Ambulance Service in Powys (as everywhere else in the UK) has shot through the roof – never mind over the last 30 years, it’s shot through the roof over the last *five* years.
One of the problems is that staffing has not risen accordingly – and there have been pressures, led by the Welsh Assembly, to cut costs so that even overtime to cover vacant shifts was cut to the bone. Taking even one crew out of the equation in Powys is disastrous as the remaining crews are very thinly spread already – no amount of moving them to ‘strategic locations’ helps when they then are away from the county for 2 to 3 hours in Hereford or Aberystywth or Shrewsbury etc…
For years the Assembly allowed cover in rural areas to worsen at the expense of more populated areas, and then started demanding to know why response times had fallen. I think there are signs that the Ambulance Service is trying to get it right and the local staff and local managers are working as hard as ever. There may have been problems right at the top of the Ambulance Service in the recent past which haven’t helped but, as executives come and go, things *may* change. The annoying thing is that most managers who work in the Ambulance Service will tell you that the Trust has in the past had one arm tied behind its back – they aren’t even allowed to comment on things as fully in public as they might, although I don’t know if that is changing.
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