West Midlands Ambulance Service best in country despite missed targets
West Midlands Ambulance Service is the best performing service in the country, new figures have revealed - despite the service missing targets in Staffordshire in three of the past six months.
The region's ambulance service, led by chief executive Anthony Marsh, is consistently meeting targets of reaching 75 per cent of life-threatening calls within eight minutes, exceeding 80 per cent in some months.
However, in the past six months the ambulance service in Staffordshire missed the target for what are known as Red 1 calls, such as cardiac arrests, in May, July and September.
It also failed to reach target times in May and June for Red 2 calls, also classed as immediately life-threatening. The service met all its targets for less serious incidents.
Ambulance crews take patients to three hospitals, including the County Hospital in Stafford and the Royal Stoke University Hospital, which has taken over a number of major clinical services from Stafford.
Average turnaround times fall within the accepted 30 minute maxim - 23 minutes for the County Hospital and 26 minutes for Royal Stoke - but spikes in demand have seen those times rise to up to 53 minutes for the County and one hour 23 minutes for Royal Stoke.
Service bosses said that in the months the targets had not been met in Staffordshire there had been large peaks in demand.
Demand during 2014-15 was more than six per cent higher than the previous year, with the trust responding to almost 850,000 emergency incidents and taking more than one million 999 calls.
Trust spokesman Steve Parry said: "This means our staff are now working under more pressure than at any previous time. It is to their immense credit that they continue to give everything in order to improve the quality of care for patients.
"One of the biggest single factors that affects ambulance performance is ambulance turnaround delays at hospital.
"We always aim to get to patients as quickly as possible but we narrowly missed the target for Red 1 calls in some months. Despite this, the trust continues to do everything possible to provide the highest standard of care in the county.
"This has included the installing of many more community defibrillators across the county. In addition we are supported by a dedicated network of community first responders."
