By Vivienne Russell | 16 September 2011
The cost of ambulances responding to emergency calls varies widely between trusts, MPs said today.
This is underpinned by differences in back-office costs, sickness absence and overtime levels, according to the Public Accounts Committee.
Costs of responding to a call ranged from £144 in the North
West Ambulance Service NHS Trust to £216 in the Great Western Ambulance Service
NHS Trust.
The MPs said the ambulance response-time target, which until April was the sole means of assessing trusts’ performance, had fuelled inefficiencies.
‘Ambulance services all too often send out too many vehicles and staff to one incident, potentially keeping the surplus ambulances from responding to other calls,’ said PAC chair Margaret Hodge.
She added that ambulances were too often kept waiting outside A&E departments, resulting in a fifth of patients waiting more than the recommended 15 minutes to be accepted by the hospital.
‘The whole of the emergency care system needs to become more integrated to prevent this happening, so that patients can get treatment faster and the ambulances can get back out to help others sooner,’ said Hodge.
The PAC also highlighted a ‘great deal of vagueness’ about who would be responsible for commissioning and monitoring ambulance services under the government’s NHS reforms and who might intervene should a trust run into financial trouble.
‘There needs to be greater clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the department, commissioners and ambulance trusts, with appropriate structures for accountability to Parliament on value for money,’ the committee said.
Jo Webber, director of the NHS Confederation’s Ambulance Service Network, said ambulance trusts were having to manage both rising demand on their services and the need to find efficiencies.
‘To meet this challenge, trusts recognise that variation
needs to be addressed and information needs to be shared more effectively
between ambulance services and across the urgent and emergency system,’ she
said.
‘The entire NHS urgent and emergency care system will need to work together in
a more joined-up way. We agree with the committee's concerns that commissioning
arrangements under the government's reforms require urgent clarification.’
