GPs hired private ambulance on strike days because risk felt too great

Exclusive A group of GPs have hired a private ambulance on strike days in case patients from its six practices need urgent transfer.

Central and West Warrington PCN said they could not take the risk of a severely ill patient unable to access help after receiving no regional plan for days when ambulance staff were taking industrial action.

PCN clinical director Dr Laura Mount added that patients accessing GP care were now routinely coming to them much sicker after delaying seeking help because of fears of long waits in A&E.

Some do not even try to contact an ambulance now and instead come into or call the practice, she added.

On six occasions in the past fortnight the two PCN paramedics who do home visits found a patient urgently requiring oxygen – not something they carry but are now reassessing.

‘We’re not meant to be an emergency service but staff are noticing a change in patient behaviour and they are turning up much sicker than before.’

‘We also had a vaccine clinic on both strike days and we have had eight cases of anaphylaxis in the past two years.

‘We just felt we couldn’t risk it, so we hired a CQC-registered ambulance with a paramedic and we also freed up one of our PCN paramedics for the day.’

Dr Mount said they had asked for advice on the liability of staff having to transport patients who were severely ill but had no clear response.

On the most recent strike day, Wednesday (11 January), the PCN paramedic visited a patient who had put off calling and as a result had turned blue. Luckily the team was able to get a category one ambulance response.

‘This was just the scenario we were scared of,’ she says. ‘Regionally we had expected some sort of mitigation plan, just some guidance and support but we got nothing.’

Dr Mount said she wanted to stress that the team was fully supportive of their ambulance colleagues but they were also having to reassess how they operated given the emergency care they are having to provide to patients as a matter of routine.

‘We are redoing the risk assessment for the PCN paramedic home visits for oxygen and also what medicines they carry based on the significant events that have happened.

‘We had kept it very minimum, the same as the doctors, because that’s what the CQC says but we are having to review.’

The PCN, which covers 56,000 patients, is also planning to hire a private ambulance for the next strike on 23 January. It costs around £670 a day and this is money they are having to take from other work, Dr Mount says.

It has been reported that the GMB union will meet ambulance representatives on Monday to discuss up to six more strike dates, after talks earlier this week failed to reach agreement.

The latest figures from December show more people seeking care than at any point since 2011, while ambulance callouts were at record levels.

Last week Pulse reported GPs increasingly having to transfer critically patients to hospital because of ambulance delays.