Oldham bids to improve ambulance targets

AMBULANCE turnaround times at the Royal Oldham Hospital are the third worst in Greater Manchester, according to new figures.

Paramedics in Oldham averaged 29 minutes and seven seconds last month (Nov 1-30, 2009), compared to the 20-minute target.

Hospital turnaround times are the total time it takes an ambulance to notify a hospital of its arrival, officially hand over the patient, clean the ambulance, restock and be declared as clear.

Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, part of the Pennine Acute NHS Trust which also runs the Royal Oldham, fared best with times of 25 minutes and 40 seconds.

Tameside General was worst with 31 minutes and five seconds.

The North-West Ambu-lance Service (NWAS) is now set to introduce a new computerised clocking-on system at hospitals in Manchester, Wigan and Bolton early next year.

It will accurately track progress by ambulance crews and hospital staff when handing over patients in a bid to identify where delays are occurring.

Derek Cartwright, Dir-ector of Emergency Serv-ice, said: “We aim for a turnaround of no more than 20 minutes.

“Executive Leads from the ambulance service, the hospitals and NHS North- West are working closely to address this issue and a number of initiatives are underway.

“These include more focused and increased monitoring, ambulance managers located at key hospital sites and the installation of automated logging systems at A&E departments.”

A ‘significant’ rise in calls to NWAS has also seen the service miss its key targets for the most serious 999 calls.

Figures show crews only reached 70 per cent of Category A emergency calls within eight minutes in October and 72 per cent in November, compared to government target of 75 per cent.

Mr Cartwright said: “We are aware that this rise in ambulance activity has been accompanied by a similar rise in the number of people attending A&E activity.

“As would be expected, this has had an impact on our performance both on a day to day basis and a cumulative one.”