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General FeaturesYou are in: Shropshire > Features > General Features > What future for patient safety?  Ambulance call centre What future for patient safety?By Tracey Higgins Proposals to close the ambulance control centre in Shropshire has prompted concerns over patient safety. The West Midlands Ambulance Service wants two larger centres in Brierley Hill and Stafford. But is bigger always better? Quiz ambulance service chiefsThere will be public meetings at Shire Hall in Shrewsbury at 7pm on Tuesday 28 August and in the Civic Offices in Telford at 7pm on Thursday 30 August. Audio and Video links on this page require Realplayer Why move?In July 2006 ambulance services in Shropshire, Hereford and Worcester, Coventry and Warwickshire and Birmingham and the Black Country merged to become the West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust. Staffordshire's Ambulance service is due to join in October 2007.  Shropshire control room Currently if you make a 999 emergency call to the ambulance service in Shropshire, it'll be answered by someone in the control room in Shrewsbury. It is manned around the clock by a team of three, who wll determine how serious your injury is, find out where you are and send out trained paramedics in ambulances or fast response vehicles to treat you. But all that could be about to change. Plans are afoot to close the control room in Shrewsbury (along with one in Worcester) and transfer the work to two larger regional centres in Brierley Hill and Stafford, with a smaller support centre in Leamington Spa. Could proposals "cost lives"?Steve Jetley an ambulance technician for the ambulance service in Shropshire has spoken out against the proposals, claiming that the closure of the Shropshire control centre will result in lives being lost:  Shropshire ambulance HQ "In a county like Shropshire, it's such a wide spread-out area, you need to have the local knowledge. You need to know what the traffic hot spots are, you need to know that you're not going to be able to get through because there's a dead end. You need to know when a new housing estate has been built. None of these things they're going to know. "And it doesn't matter how much extra they spend on extra staff, or what wonderful technology they put in... it's not going to help. It's the people in the control centre... human beings that save lives." Jetley is also concerned that Shropshire ambulances are being moved over to Birmingham and the Black Country to help out when demand is high. He says it's resulting in patients in Shropshire having to wait longer for an ambulance than they should have to when they make an emergency call. Audio and Video links on this page require Realplayer ... or mean an improvement to services?The West Midlands Ambulance Service says things have to change, for many reasons. Daniel Gore, who is the Regional Associate Director of Performance for the Trust, says one advantage of larger regional centres would be 'virtual call answering'. Calls made to the ambulance service would come into the next available operator, whichever control room they were working in, rather than only coming into the control room that's dealing with that area.  Gore also maintains that they would be able to deploy ambulances and other vehicles far more effectively with one computer dispatch system for the region. Every control room would be able to see all the resources available across the West Midlands. At the moment - with the exception of Shropshire and Birmingham and the Black Country (which can identify resources in each other's areas) - control rooms can only see ambulances and vehicles operating in their area.  Call centre in Brierley Hill He explains: "If an ambulance conveys a patient from the Coventry and Warwickshire locality into one of the Birmingham hospitals, when that ambulance becomes clear it will speak to and be seen by its local control centre. Should an emergency occur round the corner, then the ambulance could be far nearer to that emergency, but they wouldn't necessarily currently be utilised for it, because the control room in Birmingham can't see it." Audio and Video links on this page require Realplayer The West Midlands Ambulance Service insists that the proposal to close the control rooms in Shropshire and Hereford and Worcester isn't a cost cutting measure. It's currently in the middle of a public consultation exercise, and you can have your say about the plans. The first of these meetings in Shropshire takes place at 7pm on Tuesday 28 August at the Shire Hall in Shrewsbury. The second public meeting is at 7pm on Thursday 30 August at the Civic Offices in Telford. The trust will make its final decision in the autumn. We'd like to know if you think closing the ambulance control centre in Shropshire will improve the service, or compromise it? last updated: 30/08/07 SEE ALSOYou are in: Shropshire > Features > General Features > What future for patient safety? |
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