Disagreement over time ambulance took to reach Ledbury

10:15am Friday 1st August 2008

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BOTH the West Midlands Ambulance Service and Lawnside Road residents agree that the ambulance sent to assist Mr Parry arrived too late.

But there is a significant difference of accounts as to how long it took for paramedics to arrive.

Under national guidelines an ambulance service must aim to reach a “category A” emergency within eight minutes on 75 per cent of call outs, and 95 per cent within 19 minutes.

Murray McGregor, spokesman for the ambulance service, said: “There is no doubt that at the time we did not have a vehicle close enough to help the gentleman. That is very regrettable.”

Ambulance controllers attempted and failed to contact Community First Responders.

An ambulance service statement reads: “Every effort was made to reach the patient as quickly as possible. The closet vehicle to the incident, which was in Bromyard, was immediately sent.”

The statement concludes: “On the rare occasions that a situation like this occurs, the NHS Trust will always investigate the circumstances to see what, if any, lessons can be leaned.”

The ambulance service’s own computerised records say the emergency call to attend the incident came in at 9.52am on Monday and the ambulance arrived at Lawnside Road at 10.09am, 17 minutes later.

Witnesses at Lawnside Road say the wait was 25 minutes or more, and Mr Parry’s niece, Jo Hill, said the wait was 33 minutes, saying she timed it.

The Ledbury ambulance was answering an emergency call in Malvern.

The ambulance service strategically rotates its ambulance fleet according to need, and the ambulance that came from Bromyard was actually part of the Hereford fleet.

At the time of the incident, there were 17 ambulances and seven rapid response vehicles serving Herefordshire.