18 August 2006
Ambulance trusts wishing to make changes to their control room computer systems will have to seek approval from the Department of Health after the discovery that six trusts misreported their emergency response times.
Response time statistics show that ambulance trusts were meeting the eight-minute emergency response time target in around 74% of cases. However, the figures can only be approximate, as DoH auditors found that six of the 31 trusts in England had misreported their data in their computer systems, either by recategorising the nature of the call or starting the clock late.
Health minister Lord Warner said the DoH took the misreporting 'extremely seriously'. He added that the trusts concerned had been 'asked to consider whether there is an organisational or individual case to answer, and if so to take appropriate steps, including any necessary disciplinary action'.
Auditors found that recording systems in Cumbria, South Yorkshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire had either been deliberately set to start the clock only once a detailed diagnosis had been made, or were rendered inaccurate as the clocks on their servers had not been synchronised.
In Staffordshire, the West Country and West Midlands, data had been managed wrongly. 'In the main, this consisted of calls being recategorised in accordance with the response time achieved rather than the priority given when the original call was made,' said the auditors.
Between 2002 and 2003, the Commission for Health Improvement found that at least three of the same organisations – South Yorkshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire had deliberately changed their recorded response times to meet the eight-minute target. Similar flaws were found at six other trusts.
Warner said: 'The department has agreed with the new trusts that any relevant changes to computer systems that record response times now need to be pre-approved by the DoH. In addition, the department has reached agreement with software suppliers to change control room systems so that trusts cannot make changes to their own systems.'
The new arrangements will come into effect in April 2007.
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