People making inappropriate use of the 999 service shows there is a need for the public to be educated on when they should and shouldn’t make an emergency call, a West Sussex county councillor has suggested.
Grainne Conway (Ref, Bewbush & Ifield West) spoke during a scrutiny meeting on Wednesday (September 16) during a discussion with members of the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb).
She said a paramedic friend had been sent to pick up a woman who was waiting for elective – planned, non-emergency – surgery but had called an ambulance because she thought it would ‘bump’ her up the queue.
Ms Conway added: “I wonder if we need a public awareness course or advertising on when you use 999. We’ve had plenty for when you use community pharmacy versus GP to try to take people out of GP waiting lists [but] I haven’t seen so much public awareness of 999 and making sure we’re using that correctly.”
Lara Waywell, divisional director of operations at SECAmb NHS Foundation Trust, agreed there was a lot more that could be done, publicity-wise.
She added: “We’re facing an increase in demand year-on-year. We have an ageing population, we have more people living with chronic conditions than ever before, so we can’t keep having the same response to all our patients.
“We cannot keep sending two people in an ambulance to see if people actually do then need an ambulance to take them to hospital.”
Two years ago, plans were introduced by SECAmb for 50 per cent of calls to be handled ‘virtually’ by audio or video. This would ease pressure on the ambulance service by ensuring that non-life-threatening calls were safely routed to other medical care, freeing up more ambulances to attend critical emergencies.
Ms Waywell said: “The aim of all of this is to get the patient the right care at the right time and avoid those awful long waits that we’ve all seen.
“What we don’t want to do is to send an ambulance to see if the patient needs an ambulance, because we want to preserve our resources for the patients who come under category one and category two, where we know even seconds and minutes of delay increases the harm to the patient.”
Nicky Relf, head of operations for the Worthing area, said she understood why people chose to call 999 given the difficulties faced when trying to get an appointment with a GP.
She added: “We are the only ones that are there constantly and sometimes people call inappropriately – but actually they’re calling us because they don’t feel they have anywhere else to go.
“That is where our virtual care will hopefully come into its own in supporting those patients to find the right care that is available.”
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