LIVES are being put at risk because ambulances are too slow to get to emergency calls in rural Hampshire, it has been claimed.

A report by Hampshire County Council bosses branded South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) a “two-tier” system with ambulances likely to attend emergency calls quicker in cities and towns.

It suggested that ambulance chiefs were concentrating on urban areas in a bid to meet national targets.

Those allegations were flatly rejected by ambulance bosses, who added that there was no evidence to suggest patients’ lives were at risk However, New Forest West MP Desmond Swayne said he was appalled by the findings.

He said: “I have no doubt that it is the case that lives are being put at risk, as it is so appalling.

“There is a ‘ticking the boxes’ culture across the whole NHS and this is another example of that.

“It is simply not acceptable. Essentially ambulance trusts can afford to fail in certain areas if their average across the board meets a target, and they are more likely to do that in densely populated cities.”

South Central Ambulance Service - Rural Performance Report - click here

The chairman of the county council’s health overview and scrutiny committee, which carried out the report, said the need to meet targets masked poor performances in certain areas.

Councillor Anna McNair Scott said: “Our review has found that an emphasis on fixed standard response times, regardless of patient outcomes, encourages the ambulance service to concentrate on achieving rapid response times in urban areas that mask under performance in rural ones.”

The report also found evidence that there was a shortage of qualified paramedics and called into question how effectively SCAS’s dispatch system matched the type of response with patient needs.

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It demanded an action plan be drawn up to address the problem and a report back by the end of next month. The committee has also sent its recommendations, which include calls for an urgent review of the national targets, to Health Secretary Andy Burnham.

SCAS denied that the need to hit targets was worsening coverage in rural areas. A spokesman said: “We do not provide a two-tier system whatsoever. Our service is demand-led so we station our crews where they are needed most.

“It wouldn’t be right to have a crew sitting by the side of a road waiting for the call to come in when there is real demand elsewhere.

“We have a number of projects and partnerships with other organisations to support the ambulance service in rural areas.”

TARGET TIMES

The report included figures from February to October last year.

The statistics showed how often paramedics responded to the most urgent calls within the target time of eight minutes when comparing rural with urban areas.

On a quarterly average during that period in Southampton, 83 per cent of the 2,177 most urgent calls were responded to within eight minutes. In rural areas that figure was only 53 per cent of the 1,558 most serious calls received.