Calls for inquiry into Shropshire health services amid 'Russian roulette' of ambulance delays

Ludlow councillor Tracey Huffer, who works as a nurse at a GP practice in the town, said the authority had a duty to push for answers from health leaders over what she likened to “third world provision” currently been seen in the county.

She made the comments after a petition from Ludlow father Darren Childs was presented at a meeting of the full council, asking for support for a campaign to reopen the town’s ambulance base which closed in 2018.

The petition, which has been signed by 4,000 people, was launched after Mr Childs’ young daughter was left waiting 37 minutes for an ambulance after suffering a seizure last month.

Presenting the petition to councillors, Mr Childs said: “Until I few weeks ago I assumed, like most people, that in an emergency you dial 999 and within a reasonable time paramedics would be there.

“Unfortunately I now know this is not the case and although that’s how it should work, it doesn’t.”

Mr Childs recalled how, on January 15, he had called an ambulance when his 12-month-old daughter Myla suffered a seizure, during which time she stopped breathing and started to turn blue.

There were 27 ambulances in the county at the time but none were available, so a vehicle was sent from the other side of Hereford.

He said: “There was no ambulance in Shropshire when we needed one, and there were no rapid response vehicles either.

“Thank goodness we were able to get Myla breathing again, as she could easily have died.

“There’s a big problem within hospitals themselves. A&E gets full, there isn’t enough beds, patients can’t get discharged because community services have been cut and social care is broken, and the whole system is on its knees.

“The ambulances are off the roads because they’re stuck in queues outside A&E in Shrewsbury and Telford.

“I think this council should be on this like a rash. We need proper funding for Shropshire.

“We need MPs to wake up, and the council and councillors to scream from the rooftops as people in our area – your friends and your family – are being placed at risk and it is our lives on the line.”

Mr Childs said people living in rural areas were at even greater risk as it took much longer for ambulances to reach them.

It comes after West Midlands Ambulance Service faced criticism for its decision to close the last four community ambulance stations in the county – Oswestry, Market Drayton, Bridgnorth and Craven Arms – last October.

He said: “Your postcode should not decide if you live or die in Shropshire.

“We need rural ambulances, rapid response vehicles and rural healthcare back in rural south Shropshire.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service has apologised over the delays and said that handover waits at hospitals in Shropshire have had a major impact on the ability to get to patients in a timely manner.

The organisation has also rejected suggestions that a county ambulance service would deliver improvements – saying Shropshire is 'net importer' of ambulances from other parts of the region.

The service has also argued that closure of its community stations has allowed it to put one extra ambulance on the road each day, and that to provide rural service with the same response as that in urban areas would require twice the staff and two thirds more vehicles.

Speaking at the meeting Councillor Dean Carroll said Mr Childs’ experience highlighted the need for a dedicated ambulance service for the county, separate from WMAS, which he said prioritised the urban areas at Shropshire’s expense.

Councillor Carroll said: “Mr Childs’ account is absolutely harrowing and I can’t imagine what it must be like for any parent to have to experience that.”

He said the council should go further than the petition was asking, and also campaign for the return of the other community ambulance stations in the county.

He added: “We have an ambulance service that neither understands nor is particularly interested, in my opinion, in the needs of a large rural county like Shropshire.”

Councillor Huffer, who has worked in the NHS for 40 years, said people were dying as a result of current ambulance response times.

She said: “A game of Russian roulette is being played out in Ludlow with people’s lives, and health outcomes are being compromised by a failing ambulance service.

“People are actually dying waiting too long for an ambulance.

“This is shocking, it’s heartbreaking and it shouldn’t be happening.”

Councillor Huffer said “the most concerning and disgraceful thing” was that people were being told to take themselves to A&E, “where they could die on the side of the road”.

She added: “We cannot solve the problems in Ludlow and other rural areas without solving the problems at the centre of the health operation in Shropshire, but we are not getting answers from SaTH (Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust) and we are not getting answers from WMAS.

“When we are not getting answers, clearly Shropshire Council has a responsibility to examine what is happening through our scrutiny process.

“We should set up an inquiry, a select committee, to get answers from the hospital trust, the ambulance trust and to hear views from across the county such as those Darren has expressed today.

“This would be a powerful statement from Shropshire Council that it’s not a passive player when health services in our county are struggling and failing to deliver services that we need.”

Her comments were echoed by other members, with Councillor Heather Kidd saying: “It’s now routine for people to be waiting for an ambulance for hours on end, it’s routine for ambulances to be stacked outside the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

“The whole of our health service is now letting us down and it’s time this council did more.”

Councillor Julian Dean said the current problems being seen with ambulance waiting times were just the tip of the iceberg.

He said: “We have an NHS in national crisis but we have a local NHS in complete meltdown.

“We have an ambulance service which is collapsing, we know that we have a maternity service which is still in complete crisis and is a horror, we know that the senior management in the local NHS seem to have broken all the rules when they closed Bishop’s Castle Hospital. Across the board, they are in crisis.

“Our administration now needs to declare no confidence in the management of the NHS in this area.”

Councillor Simon Jones, portfolio holder adult social care and public health, said: “The council has and is taking action with respect of the WMAS closure of ambulance hubs in Shropshire, both through our health and adult social care scrutiny and the health and wellbeing board.

“I move that the council take the action requested in the petition and formally support the petitioner’s campaign, and continue with our actions to require WMAS to reopen the hubs previously closed.”

Councillors unanimously voted to support the campaign.

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: "Our staff are working tirelessly to respond to patients as soon as we can. Unfortunately, long hospital handover delays do mean some patients are waiting longer for an ambulance to come to them than we would want.

"Shropshire benefits from being part of the wider West Midlands as we are able to support the county with additional ambulances when delays occur.

"Setting up a county service would divert funds away from frontline care and make patients wait longer for an ambulance, not improve the service.

"Closing the four community ambulance station allowed us to put the equivalent of an extra ambulance on the roads of Shropshire every single day.

"Research by commissioners clearly shows that to achieve the same performance in a rural area as that of an urban one, WMAS staff numbers would need to double and our ambulance fleet be increased by two thirds."