Issue - meetings

Terry Williamson, Stakeholder Engagement Manager, London Ambulance Service (LAS), presented the report and updated progress on the Improvement Plan.  The Improvement Plan had been out into place following the inspection by the care Quality Commission (CGC) in June 2015 which had rated the services as “inadequate”. 

Terry gave the background to the service and the Improvement Plan, which provided the details of the LAS intention to provide a better service to patients and a better place to work and the work plans to achieve those required improvements.  The details were set out in the report but particular attention was drawn to:

·  Approximately 200 operational staff cover vehicles deployed in the North East London, which included stations in Dagenham, Ilford, Hornchurch, and Romford and there were also supporting resources from Newham, Hackney and Waltham Forest.  The prioritisation of 999 calls was undertaken at the Emergency Operations Centres at Waterloo and Bow.

·  Culture change workshops had been held on bullying and harassment. 

·  Recruitment of Paramedics was being undertaken across the world and the services had been particularly successful in attracting staff from Australia; some of whom would be starting work at the end of March 2016.

·  An innovative ‘elderly fallers’ provision had been set up in partnership with NELFT.  This provided an appropriate care pathway for these patients that prevented attendance at hospital.

·  The Quality Improvement Plan wouldl involve all staff in all its work streams, which would include an investigation into pathways to treatment at Urgent Care Centres etc and identifying what issues may be stopping staff from using them.

·  For the year-to-date, the demand for the service (calls) in Baking and Dagenham had increased by 4.7%.  The North East London sector was currently the third highest performing area across the whole LAS area.  However, the target for Category A calls nationally was 75% attendance within 8 minutes and whilst this  was not achieved by many national services, the LAS was only achieving 58.3% and wished to improve on this.

In response to a question from Cllr Butt, Terry advised that the performance data in section 2.2 of the report were response times for Category A (life threatening) calls, for which the response time to arrive at the patient was 8 minutes.  Abbey Ward had the highest level of Category A calls.  Sean Wilson, Interim Borough Commander, Metropolitan Police, advised that Abbey was also their highest calls area for violence.  It was noted that the call status would not be downgraded if on arrival it transpired the patient did not be life threatening condition.  Terry advised that he would provide the necessary data to enable it to be mapped if it may result in some partnership innovation.

Cllr Turner advised that he had seen the data and added that he was pleased to see the LAS engagement with the Board.

Sean Wilson advised that there was some joint working initiatives being trialled with other 999 services, for example LAS are intending to use Havering Fire Brigade on a safe stand-by point  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92