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Ambulance service

Posted By a holocaust survivor

"Ambulance service"

About: South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

(as a friend),

The ambulance was late.

The patient is 84 years old and lives alone and had been ready for 2 hours.

After treatment the nurse spent 1 hour being passed from pillar to post trying to arrange transport home.

She arrived home at 7. 15 pm.

I have spent time trying to convince her that the effort is worth it for the rest of her treatment. She is very depressed by the whole experience. On one previous occasion she was delivered home at 10.00pm after a 4 hour wait in a corridor.

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Responses

Response from Sara Coburn, Patient Engagement Manager, Governance, South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust 10 years ago
Sara Coburn
Patient Engagement Manager, Governance,
South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust

Submitted on 07/10/2013 at 15:20
Published on Care Opinion at 21:29

Dear a holocaust survivor

Thank you for your feedback. I am very sorry to hear that your friend felt depressed by her experience; this is certainly not our aim.

Our Patient Transport Service is a predominately pre-planned service; our crews work to a schedule that has been planned out the previous day. Our dispatch teams try to manage the workload to ensure that patients are picked up as close as possible to the time requested by the hospital.

Unfortunately there are times when our crews are delayed; problems with traffic congestion, departments over running earlier in the day or vehicle breakdowns can all cause longer waits for patients. Unforeseen delays can be challenging to manage and we are aware that these delays can have a significant impact on patients, however we always aim to get our patients home as soon as possible.

We would really welcome the opportunity to look into the events around your friend's transport so we can provide a fuller answer as to what happened. However, in order to do this we will need some specific information regarding the journeys. May I ask you or your friend to contact our Patient Experience Team, at your convenience, by either 01392 261 585 or SWAST.patientexperience@nhs.net.

Thank you, again, for taking the time to share this story.

Sara

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