East of England Ambulance Service

Debate between Priti Patel and Keith Simpson

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes the point clearly about the impact on elderly patients and the unacceptable waiting times that his constituents, and those of other hon. Members, have endured.

Data from the trust show that in the last quarter of 2012-13, the A8 target for paramedic arrival to treat a patient in a life-threatening condition within eight minutes was met 70% of the time, compared to the 75% target. The A19 target was also missed, as ambulances arrived to transport patients with life-threatening conditions within 19 minutes 92% of the time, compared to the 95% target. Patients with other conditions have experienced appalling delays. In each of the 10 months from April 2012 to January 2013, the trust failed to meet the target to get 62% of stroke patients to hospital within 60 minutes. In fact, in seven of those months the figures were below 50%.

The delays in an ambulance arriving to transport patients to hospital after they have been attended to by a volunteer community first responder or paramedic in a rapid response vehicle are particularly alarming. Figures provided by the trust to me covering Essex showed that in 2012 there were 39,921 of these back-up requests, but on 12,584 occasions it took more than 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive. In Witham alone, in 206 incidents it took more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, from 639 back-up requests.

It is scandalous that almost one third of patients needing to go to hospital by ambulance were left waiting, causing them distress and preventing the initial paramedic or volunteer who attended the scene from moving on to help other patients elsewhere. Four patients a week in Witham, 242 in Essex and many hundreds more across the region have endured those waits, and the trust’s board sat idly and did nothing while the situation got ever worse. The failures have led to the trust becoming the worst performing ambulance trust in the country. The statistics are terrible and the delays can have serious consequences for the lives of patients affected.

The Minister will have seen numerous news reports from local, regional and national newspapers highlighting devastating cases across the region. Colleagues from across the region will, like me, have seen cases all over their local newspapers and will have had numerous constituents writing to them about their own experiences.

There have been some dreadful incidents affecting my constituents who have faced not only unacceptable delays, but a devastating impact of the consequence of those delays. One constituent from Tiptree suffered lengthy delays on not just one but two occasions—in August and September—before passing away. On the first occasion, she suffered a mini-stroke, and the emergency doctor who attended her home called for an ambulance that morning, but it took more than three hours for a paramedic to arrive. The paramedic then called for a back-up ambulance, which did not come. After waiting four hours, members of my constituent’s family placed her in one of their cars to take her to hospital. Although my constituent had suffered a stroke, the trust neglected her. If her family had not taken the risk of transporting her to hospital, she may never have got there.

The following month, my constituent fell in her care home and banged her head, resulting in a lump larger than a chicken egg on her temple. The ambulance was called at 9.38 pm, but it did not arrive until almost two hours later, at 11.25 pm, despite the fact that the care home was barely five minutes from Colchester ambulance station. Once my constituent was in hospital, a CT scan confirmed that she was haemorrhaging on the brain, and she died soon after. Had the ambulance arrived sooner, my constituent would have received treatment more promptly and might still be alive today. I raised the case with the trust, but it took two months to reply, coming up with a feeble excuse and a shallow apology.

Other constituents have also let me know of their frustration about delays. Mrs Houghton, from Tolleshunt Knights, has two young daughters with serious medical conditions that require frequent hospital care. One has a condition that can lead to sudden death syndrome; the other suffers from a condition that includes supraventricular tachycardia, which can cause her heartbeat to quicken, and her treatment requires a life-saving injection. Last year, my constituent reported to me that ambulances were taking longer to arrive than they used to and that rapid response vehicles were sent instead to take her daughters to hospital. As the Minister will appreciate, these incidents have caused Mrs Houghton increased anxiety, particularly given that her daughters are children. They need an ambulance to attend promptly, but that is simply not happening.

In a separate case, a constituent who is a carer for a relative, Mrs Gladys Money, reported to me the delay Gladys experienced while waiting for an ambulance. Only two weeks ago, Gladys, who is 96 years old, suffered a fall in her kitchen. She could not reach the telephone, so she used the emergency call line button she carries with her at all times to request assistance. An ambulance was called, but it did not arrive for an hour and a half. During that time, Gladys was in much distress and could not lift herself up or even call for further help. Such delays in the treatment of elderly people are unacceptable; they are simply not right, and people cannot be treated in this way.

Another constituent reported to me his outrage when, in November, an ambulance failed to arrive after his 20-month-old grandson started hyperventilating and developed a high temperature. After two hours’ waiting and three telephone calls, he was assured an ambulance would arrive shortly, but that did not happen. After being told that ambulance crews were too busy to attend, he resorted to taking his grandson to accident and emergency himself. There are so many other cases I could mention, and I have no doubt that other hon. Members have plenty of other examples they wish to raise.

Despite the fact that the trust received complaints from Members of Parliament, members of the public and its own staff, nothing was done to address the problem seriously. What made the trust’s lack of attention to the problems all the more shocking was the fact that, in May 2012, the CQC reported concerns with response times. It clearly stated that

“the Trust had not met some of its key performance standards in relation to response times”

and needed

“to seek ways of addressing the challenges it faces in responding quickly in very rural areas and on improving turn around times at the hospitals in its region so that people receive care in a timely and effective manner.”

Senior managers, directors and non-executive directors should have seen the warning signs. They should have been working with hospitals in the region to improve handover times. They should have reassessed changes to staffing rotas and brought in new front-line staff to fill the 200 empty posts. They should have re-examined how they prioritise calls. They should have altered the allocation of resources to put more ambulances on the road. Finally, they should have got a grip on the trust’s growing deficit.

Many things should have been questioned and required serious attention. However, the trust acted only this year, following another CQC inspection in February, the report of which was published in March. That inspection came about only as a result of the persistence of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)and other Members of Parliament in the region, who pressed for an investigation into the trust. The report demanded action to improve the

“Care and welfare of people who use services”.

It concluded that since the

“last inspection the trust’s performance in relation to its ambulance response times had deteriorated and people could not be assured they would receive care in a timely and effective manner.”

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey)—La Pasionaria of Southwold, as she is her known in her constituency—on her role. Last October, my wife had a serious accident, and there were considerable delays in treating her. We are all aware of such things, but does my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) agree that there is a systemic culture of failure and buck-passing not only on this issue, but, sadly, in wider areas of the NHS and the public sector? What worries me—my hon. Friend might come on to this—is that if a new board is appointed, it might well consist of recycled individuals from the quangocracy who may have failed in other parts of the country.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend’s assessment of the culture in the NHS is absolutely correct. Let us not forget that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, alluded to the rotten culture in the NHS. I will come to the fact that cultural change is required and that we must stop this revolving door and this recycling of people in the NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend makes some pertinent and valid points. Transparency and accountability are key things. I have touched on the issue of the revolving door in the NHS, but cronyism is another issue. We must stop the same people being placed on and recycled around various boards in the NHS. NHS board members should put patients first, but, as the governance review by Dr Marsh concluded,

“there is a lack of focus and grip from the Board which has contributed towards the deterioration of performance across the Trust.”

The question, as we have already heard, is whose interests the board is serving. It should be putting patients first.

The Minister will know that the review is full of many other statements about the board, each of which is a damning indictment of each non-executive director and of the board. As to the quality risk profile showing that a number of outcomes relating to patient care and welfare were not being achieved, the review states at page 13:

“The Board should be taking leadership decisions and actions on these Outcomes and holding others to account,”

but of course there has been collective failure and

“this doesn’t appear to be happening.”

On page 14 the review refers to the current trust board and senior management team appearing to have developed “a sense of ‘helplessness’” and states that

“the Board have not been taking both the responsibility collectively as well as they could or should have and that Board members have not been held to account”.

On page 18 the report highlights

“a lack of confidence and trust that the Board has the expertise, experience or gravitas to respond to the substantial challenges facing the organisation.”

Page 22 contains the conclusion that

“the overall Governance arrangements cannot have been adequate for the Trust to get into this much difficulty.”

The non-executive directors’ fingerprints are, to be frank, all over the crisis. The trust is experiencing major failures, and every day that the individuals remain on the board they are being financially rewarded for blatant failure. Their poor leadership and inability to acknowledge and deal with the challenges facing the trust have led to patients’ lives being put at substantial risk. The trust’s staff survey results have demonstrated the lowest morale in the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal and I wrote to Paul Remington while he was acting chair, to ask him and his fellow non-executive directors to explain their actions and what they had done about improving the trust. We wanted to give them a fair and proper chance to explain themselves in the aftermath of the CQC’s report earlier in the year. We received a substantive reply from Mr Remington two months later, on the eve of the publication of the Government’s review, and it was light on information and did not acknowledge the mess that the trust was in. It was thoroughly unconvincing. In view of those poor responses I hope that the Minister will appreciate that the presence of those non-executive directors on the board is undermining public and staff confidence in the trust. It is scandalous that they have not already been dismissed, and shocking that, despite the publication of the Marsh review, board members whose terms are due to expire this year are to be reappointed for the foreseeable future. The report of the chair and chief executive for tomorrow’s board meeting states that, during the recruitment process for the new non-executive directors,

“the TDA has agreed to extend Mr Remington’s period of service on an interim basis.”

That is utterly unacceptable. Why should Mr Remington and other non-executive directors be allowed to continue on their taxpayer-funded ride, when they have failed so miserably to fulfil their responsibilities? What will happen to the other non-executive directors, whose terms do not end this year? How much longer will they be permitted to remain in post? They refuse to do the right thing and step down, so I urge the Minister to recommend to the Secretary of State and the NHS Trust Development Authority that they should use their powers to remove them with immediate effect, before the board meets in Bedford tomorrow.

In addition to the board’s inability to lead the trust, its secretive and unaccountable handling of criticism by Members of Parliament is also disturbing.

[Mr Keith Simpson]

I have a question for my hon. Friend based on ignorance: there have been some extensions, but by whom were they made? Is that part of the revolving door?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend asks a valid and pertinent question, and I give him one word: accountability. His question is very good, and we need to continue to ask who is making the decisions.

In the board papers for the trust meeting tomorrow there is no reference to the fact that Members of Parliament for the region have questioned the board’s competence and called for resignations. Our correspondence is not even mentioned. The papers merely state that the chair and the chief executive have

“met a number of MPs over the last month to discuss issues such as ambulance responses”.

That is simply not good enough and fails to reflect the serious concerns that all Members of Parliament across the region have expressed in their questioning of the trust on behalf of their constituents. Decisive action is now necessary, because the trust, its front-line staff and the 6 million people who live in the east of England need to have skilful and competent non-executive directors leading the board. I hope that when my hon. Friend the Minister concludes the debate she will commit to ensuring that resources will be made available to help the trust head-hunt and bring in the right set of people as soon as possible to support both Dr Harris and Dr Marsh.

It is also clear to me that the problems with the board have yet again demonstrated the wider failures within the NHS appointment process. Again and again, incompetent and ineffective individuals have been placed in important roles. Some of the five non-executive directors who should be dismissed from the trust sit or have sat on other NHS bodies, and it is shocking to think that they could be recycled elsewhere in the NHS. I would welcome an assurance that those non-executive directors, who have devastated the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, will be prohibited from holding any further NHS job.

By the end of the debate, I am confident the Minister will be left in no doubt of the seriousness of the situation with the ambulance trust and of the desire of the public, front-line staff and all Members in the region to see our trust improve. I hope she can give an assurance that the Government will do everything possible to help patients receive the first-class service that they deserve, to hold those in responsible positions to account and to resolve the mismanagement of the trust that we have all endured for far too long.