Newry and Armagh MLA, Justin McNulty expressed grave concerns over missed NI Ambulance Service targets, when he addressed last Thursday’s (May 28) Southern Health & Social Care (SHC) Trust board meeting.
The SDLP representative told the board panel: “The crises facing our ambulance service and Emergency Departments have been a long time in the making, and despite some attempts to fix the situation, things have only got worse.
“Ambulance handover targets in the North have evolved over time. Previous goals focused on completing handovers within 15 minutes, with no handover exceeding 30 minutes.
“However, in recent years these targets have been consistently missed, with nearly 120,000 on the road hours being lost due to ambulances missing handover time targets.
“It is unacceptable for people to die waiting for an ambulance or to spend hours, even days, in an ambulance outside a hospital.
“The SDLP’s ‘Help Can’t Wait’ report proposes the introduction of the W45 policy – a mandatory 45-minute limit for ambulance handovers – drawing on models that have been successfully implemented elsewhere.
“In doing so, this aims to get ambulances back into the communities where they are needed, rather than stalled outside Emergency Departments.
“This work has been informed in part through site visits with Emergency Departments and Ambulance Services in the North and in England.
“Evidence shows that by implementing a W45 policy, we can reduce Emergency Department handover times by 50 per cent, helping to free up to 60,000 operational hours each year.
“The SDLP’s ‘Help Can’t Wait’ report outlines several case studies and recommendations from other jurisdictions to guide implementation.
“While the introduction of the two-hour maximum time limit is a welcome step forward, I hope the Trust can work towards the W45 policy to enable increased capacity in Emergency Departments, and ensure patients receive the highest quality of care in a prompt manner.”
