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Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust Annual Report 2007-08 VISION CONTENTS 2/3 We will improve the health of our patients Values Beliefs by working in partnership to deliver a range of effective and appropriate Cooperative Our beliefs underpin everything we do. We healthcare services. We work together in partnerships, believe that the following shape and guide 2 | VISION involving staff, patients, volunteers, the everything we seek to achieve: The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust has NHS and other partners to design and 3 | CONTENTS a mandate to improve healthcare outside ● Patients come first deliver our services 4 | FOREWORD hospital in the context of Welsh Assembly Accountable ● Partnerships are critical Government strategies including, principally, We are accountable to our communities ● 5 | ABOUT US Designed for Life and Delivering Emergency Care People are valued and one another for the effective and 6 | StorY OF THE YEAR Services. efficient delivery of our services ● Public accountability is essential Our vision recognises that we can only do so Responsive 8 | TIME to MaKE A DIFFERENCE successfully if we work in partnership with We are responsive in developing our 10 | FeedbacK services according to the needs of our other NHS organisations, local government 12 | VOLUNTEER FIRST RESPONDERS and other bodies, including the Wales Air communities and partners Ambulance Charitable Trust, community health Ethical 14 | EMERGENCY MedicaL ServiceS councils and citizens’ groups. We do the right things, behaving with dignity and respect and treating others as 16 | Patient CARE ServiceS Our vision also informs the priorities set we would wish to be treated ourselves 18 | NHS DIRECT WALES out in this plan, requiring us to deliver Supportive effective services (e.g., clinically effective We support one another, ensuring our 20 | TRANING AND DEVELOPMENT emergency care and reliable non emergency patients benefit from an effective and 22 | AIR AMBULANCE transportation) and to do so appropriately appropriate level of service (e.g., improving our 999 call categorisation and 23 | CONSULTATION NHS Direct Wales triage). 24 | FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2008 34 | THE Board 2007-08 36 | StateMent ON InternaL ControL 2007-08 42 | SALARY AND PENSION ENTITLEMents OF SENIOR MANAGERS 44 | MaKING THE Connections – RECURRING AND NON-RECURRING SavinGS 4 6 | Directors’ StateMENT 47 | EQuaLITY AND DIVERSITY FOREWORD ABOUT US 4/5 This was the year when the Welsh Ambulance Service At the same time, we would be ready, willing and We have also had great success with pre-hospital The Trust During the year the Trust has continued to develop really did begin to Deliver the Difference to the able to respond to 999 calls in those rural areas when thrombolysis when cardiac patients are given a new initiatives to deal with the ever-increasing number The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, established people of Wales. necessary. clotbusting drug. Only a small number of patients of emergency calls, these include managing demand in unsung heroes in 1998, serves a population of 2.9 million, across receive thrombolysis but there is no doubt that it saves different ways by developing alternative care pathways As we anticipated there were many difficulties along Fundamentally, we are a health care service. Where 20,640 kilometres. From April 2007 NHS Direct Wales lives. to meet the needs of patients. A pensioner who ‘flat-lined’ five times has described the way and there are others we have yet to overcome. a patient needs emergency care, we have to deliver became an integral part of the Trust. the ambulance men who saved her life as “unsung clinically effective care and in all cases we have to One area where we have recognised that we still have NHS Direct Wales provides a 24-hour health advice But less than two years into our five-year The Trust: heroes”. deliver care that is appropriate to meet the needs a great deal of work to do is the way we communicate and information service to the people of Wales, and modernisation programme, Time to Make a Difference, of the individual patient whether that be a 999 with staff. ● is managed by a Board of Executive and Non- in the last year dealt with over 685,000 contacts. This Now Doris Evans has sent a cheque for £250 we are broadly on track. We are getting there. ambulance or referral to another service or simply self Executive Directors that meets regularly at various includes 356,755 telephone calls and 328,332 web hits. towards the ambulance service in the Pembroke We have lessons to learn from the Trust’s staff survey We are achieving our performance targets in care advice. locations across Wales. The Service has contact centres across Wales in Bangor, area where she lives. and we can assure the people who work for the Welsh responding to life-threatening emergencies. As a Cwmbran and Swansea. One of the key developments of the year was the fact Ambulance Service that we will learn them. ● employs 2,922 people – 67% are operational – Doris, 78, fell over while getting out of bed so result, we are reaching more patients more quickly. that NHS Direct Wales became a full and integrated 1,309 on emergency duties, 636 on non emergency husband Philip dialled 999 and within minutes As we look forward to next year, we are confident that Accountability What we need to do now is ensure that our part of the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust. ambulance and health courier services, 430 paramedic Marcus Viggers and technician Andy the Welsh Ambulance Service will continue to improve Everything done by those who work in the Trust must performance is consistently good across Wales. management/administrative support, 547 Control Wilson were at the scene. Assimilating NHS Direct Wales into WAST makes a lot of and that implementing our five-year strategy will make be able to stand the test of Government scrutiny and NHS Direct Wales call handlers. During the year, we were complying with our target sense in relation to delivering emergency care services even more of a difference. and public judgements on propriety and satisfy the On no less than five occasions - three times while of reaching 60% of Category A patients within eight – creating a single point of access to healthcare so that ● operates from 90 ambulance stations, seven requirements of professional codes of conduct. with the paramedics – Doris had experienced “flat- minutes in 15 of the 22 Local Health Board areas. We liners”, when her heart stopped beating, but each people can be treated closer to home or even in their control centres, three regional offices, five vehicle Probity are now determined to be compliant in all LHB areas. own homes when they do not need or want to go to workshops time they revived her. hospital. The Board, its managers and staff, are committed It is not possible to deliver a service in the same way ● has a National Training College with regional “For that I will be eternally grateful, and no words to maintaining absolute standards of honesty and in a sparsely populated area with a widely distributed NHS Direct Wales has also made significant progress training centres of mine can fully describe my appreciation of their integrity. population and a poor road network. in increasing the number of callers who are given ‘self excellent work,” she said. In 2007-08 the service dealt with 302,664 emergency care’ advice. Openness So, we have to think differently about places like Powys incidents, 57,236 urgent journeys and transported Andy added: “It’s nice when a patient takes the and Ceredigion where we are working in partnership Fewer people who call NHS Direct Wales are 1,293,047 non-emergency patients to over 200 The Trust strives to demonstrate sufficient transparency trouble to Stuart Fletcher Alan Murray thank us for with Local Health Boards to develop new ways of being transferred to 999 and that’s all being done Chairman Chief Executive treatment centres throughout England and Wales. about its activities to promote confidence among the working. appropriately and safely. In turn, that enables Trust and its staff, patients and the public. the service, but it was We believe this should include putting ambulance emergency crews to concentrate on life-threatening emergencies. a real practitioners into rural areas so that we can provide a If you require this document in other languages, large print, surprise wider range of health care. Where appropriate, it would None of this would have been achieved without the or an audio format please ring 01745 532948. to learn be possible to keep people out of hospital by treating outstanding contribution of our staff and a whole host she had and supporting them in their own homes. of volunteers, including Community First Responders sent a and Ambulance Car drivers. cheque.” StorY OF THE YEAR 6/7 It was another year of immense change and That was far too high and above the national There was a perception that back up This had an impact on overall performance, Another positive development was the challenges for the Welsh Ambulance Services average but during the year that figure went ambulances were slow in reaching patients so much so that December was the only introduction of a dedicated high dependency NHS Trust. down to 40% - the aim now is to get it down to being attended to by a paramedic in an RRV. month where the Trust failed to achieve the team to improve the service given to 30%. 60% target of reaching patients suffering patients with urgent needs while at the same The five-year modernisation programme, Time However, the Wales Audit Office found that life-threatening emergencies within eight time relieving the burden on emergency to Make a Difference, is work in progress – but One of the most significant developments across Wales of the call-outs initially attended minutes.

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