health

Andrew Stephenson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I recently spent the day out and about with the North West ambulance service and want briefly to cover my experiences with them.

The North West ambulance service is England’s largest ambulance service, with more than 5,200 staff, 109 ambulance stations and three control centres. It deals with more than 1 million emergency calls every year and although it also provides a non-emergency patient transport service, my day focused on the emergency medical response that it provides 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

On Thursday 30 August I joined local paramedic Andy Swinburn in a rapid response vehicle that was responding to emergency calls across the Burnley and Pendle area. Although I am sure that many hon. Members would enjoy being in the passenger seat of an emergency services vehicle with the blue lights flashing, I wanted to witness the challenges faced daily by staff from the Barnoldswick, Nelson and Burnley ambulance stations.

During the shift, the vehicle I was in responded to nine blue-light emergencies, seven of which were in my constituency of Pendle. I am told that that was a quiet day, and it certainly was compared with the day before, when the air ambulance was called out twice to east Lancashire. For someone such as me, however, who had never spent any time with the ambulance service before, it certainly seemed anything but quiet.

During the day, the paramedic I was with dealt with everything from people having dizzy spells and epileptic fits to suspected heart attacks and someone who had serious-looking head injuries after falling from a ladder. In between calls and when I met other paramedics at the Nelson ambulance station, we discussed a range of issues from the classification of different emergency incidents and the value of the eight-minute response time through to problems caused locally by alcohol and drug misuse.

We also discussed the question of which hospital a patient is taken to, which has been an issue of much concern among people locally after Burnley general hospital’s A and E department was downgraded to an urgent care centre in 2007. The people involved in the calls we responded to during the shift were taken to Airedale, Burnley and Blackburn hospitals, depending on which was best placed to treat the individuals concerned.

We also discussed something of which I was previously unaware, which is that paramedics are currently unable to prescribe drugs. I would appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on that—I, too, welcome him to his new role. It seems entirely logical to me that if a senior paramedic can diagnose a problem while in someone’s home, they should be able to prescribe the required drugs rather than having to call out a GP or take the individual to hospital.

Another issue worth considering is the basis of commissioning of ambulance services. When asked about ambulance services, the public will invariably put the speed of response above all other concerns, including the quality of care. The eight-minute response performance indicator in part reflects what the public say they want. However, some of the paramedics I spoke to felt that if they were commissioned on the basis of being able to treat people with certain conditions at the scene, usually the person’s home, there could be considerable savings to the NHS. That links to my point about paramedics being able to prescribe the required drugs.

Although such a commissioning move would undoubtedly have a range of knock-on impacts, it was clear from the day I spent with the ambulance service that many people did not want to be admitted to hospital and would have much preferred to have stayed in their own home. I know that the Minister, given his background, will be acutely aware of not only the cost of hospital admissions, but the stress and other complications that such admissions can lead to.

Overall, I felt that the day gave me an invaluable insight into the work of our local paramedics and the ambulance service. Although I have never needed to use the ambulance service—thank God—it was hugely reassuring to see the professionalism and dedication of those who work in it. I will conclude simply by extending my thanks to the North West ambulance service, to Andy Swinburn, the senior paramedic I spent the day with, and to all our local paramedics for the remarkable job they do.