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The reports about the conduct of South East Coast Ambulance Trust are truly shocking. 

Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of the Patients Association said: 

“The reports about the conduct of South East Coast Ambulance Trust are truly shocking. There has been a complete disregard for patient safety through a policy that has put thousands of patients at risk. While the 111 service was designed for non-emergency calls, any situation that is categorised as “life threatening” should be treated as such. In emergency situations, every minute is vital and this doubling of response time is completely unacceptable. 

Senior staff should be working alongside the phone operators to guide them and provide good examples of how calls should be handled. These findings represent a serious betrayal of trust of all those who work so hard to provide help for patients. Patients have suffered through this inexcusable policy and there must now be a thorough investigation into the policy decision, how it came to be implemented and the secrecy surrounding it.

The findings of this report must be publicised widely to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen again. Patient safety should never be sacrificed in order to hit targets. It should always be the primary concern of all those making decisions across the health and care sector. We will continue to campaign for greater patient safety through the All Party Parliament Group on Patient Safety and urge anyone who has been affected by this project to contact our National Helpline on 0845 608 4455.” 

Notes for Editors

The Patients Association is an independent national health and social care charity established over 52 years ago, and has a long history of campaigning to ensure that the voice of patients is heard within the Health and Social care system. 

For further information please contact the Patients Association on 020 8423 9111 alternatively you can call 07779 004898

You can also visit us on our website at www.patients-association.org.uk

You can also view our All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Patient Safety at http://www.patientsassociation.org.uk/policy-campaigns/all-party-parliamentary-group-patient-safety/