This Month...INCREDIBLE CALL ANSWERING PERFORMANCE ON

This Month.... January 2019

Changes in Clinical Support and Leadership

Trust to Invest in Mental Health Wellbeing INCREDIBLE CALL ANSWERING PERFORMANCE ON NYE AND BEYOND What Does Future Fit Mean for WMAS? New figures show the excellent level of performance in the Trust’s control rooms throughout the year...page 3 Strategic Capacity Cell to be Launched

Almost 500 New Staff

Family are Reunited with Lifesaving Crew

Some Hospitals are Continuing to Struggle

Meet Our New Medical Director

Staff Remember Mark

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Top Stories…….

Incredible NYE Call Answering Performance Continues Throughout Year Despite it traditionally being the Trust’s busiest night of the year, the weeks and months of planning and preparation paid off on New Year’s Eve as calls were answered in an average of just one second across Tollgate and Millennium Point Emergency Operations Centres. The performance came despite a 3.5% increase in calls between 7pm and 6am with 2,140 999 calls coming in during that timeframe compared to 2,068 12-months earlier. This was in contrast to New Year’s Day where there was a fall in call numbers with 4,152 being taken, down 290 compared to 2018. It should not come as a particular surprise though, given new figures being released that show just how strong call answering performance is within the Trust all year round. The below figures show the number of times callers waited over two minutes before their call was answered. Head of EOCs, Jeremy Brown, said: “While it is clear that it is never good that people wait over two minutes for a call to be answered, the fact that so few happen in the West Midlands shows the outstanding performance from the staff in our two EOCs. It has to be remembered that we now take around 100,000 calls a month so to have so few is excellent. It is also clear that the decision to invest in additional call handling staff has paid dividends. It is worth noting these figures because at the end of the day, if we don’t answer the calls Trust April May June July Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Total quickly, we can’t help WMAS 9 34 29 39 8 22 50 26 36 253 patients. Think of a YAS 39 85 260 29 21 25 26 7 4 496 cardiac arrest patient; if we NEAS 21 24 45 84 76 89 68 58 49 514 take over two minutes to EMAS 46 27 22 53 78 59 203 131 155 774 answer the call, we have SWAS 64 284 127 161 114 59 203 131 155 774 reduced the chances of EoE 27 64 100 325 104 181 119 467 31 1,418 that patient surviving by SCAS 63 245 254 527 269 215 232 152 192 2,149 20%, so it is vital that we LAS 446 522 1167 1569 380 476 368 192 254 5,374 answer calls as quickly as SEC 975 810 845 1032 568 440 396 282 1173 6,521 we can.” NWAS 832 944 1085 1236 1003 1023 988 680 799 8,590

What Does the Future Fit Decision Mean for WMAS? Plans have been given the go change the way hospital services in Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin are organised. The decision by the Joint Committee of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups on the ‘Future Fit’ project means that Princess Royal Hospital in Telford will become a dedicated Planned Care site with an urgent care centre while Royal Shrewsbury Hospital will become a specialist Emergency Care site. It also means PRH will lose its A&E Department. WMAS Director of Clinical Commissioning, Mark Docherty, said: “We have been fully involved throughout the process. Part of that work was to model the additional funding we would need to ensure we are able to maintain patient safety and standards of care. The independent work by ORH means we will get funding for an additional 144 hours of ambulance time each week. We will continue to take a large number of patients with urgent medical needs to Princess Royal Hospital; it is only those with much more acute conditions that would be taken to Shrewsbury and many of those, for example major trauma patients, will continue be taken to specialist centres outside of the county. We also believe that the changes will result an improvement in the handover times for ambulance crews at A&E which have been problematic. The subsequent increase in ambulance availability will also have a positive impact on staff and patients alike.”

News…….

Strategic Capacity Cell to be Launched A plan that will help to alleviate delays at hospitals and reduce the time ambulance crews spend trying to access alternative pathways is set to be launched in the West Midlands. Following discussions with NHS England, NHS Improvement and Commissioners, the Trust will set up a Strategic Capacity Cell which will co-ordinate patient flows and also support crews to find alternative pathways for patients. The cell will bring together the work of several systems including: • The NHS England/Improvement Winter Resilience Room which co-ordinates the management of emerging situations and briefs the national team • The Regional Capacity Management Team which co-ordinates the acute Trust EMS levels and takes an overview of hospital capacity across the region • The WMAS Strategic Operations Cell (SOC) and Hospital Desk which manages live capacity and patient flow issues in the ambulance service • HALO’s who manage ambulance turnarounds on hospital sites • Directory of Service (DOS) Leads who maintain, develop and enhance established and alternative arrangements to effectively sign post patients to the most suitable care pathways The Strategic Capacity Cell, which will be at ambulance HQ, will have access to a comprehensive range of live information feeds giving a real time regionwide overview of pressures. By working together, the Cell will make proactive decisions about workload, patient flow and intelligent conveyancing. In addition, a team of clinical assessment advisor paramedics will be able to take a handover from crews at scene and make bookings for these patients at the likes of GPs and other primary care health provision allowing crews to clear more quickly. It is hoped that by joining all of these services together, fewer patients will be taken to hospital, crews will not be held up on handover delays and pressure is reduced on hospital emergency departments. Trust Chief Executive, Anthony Marsh, said: “This is an exciting initiative which will provide even better support to our front-line crews, control room staff and patients. It also represents another first in the country for WMAS.”

Almost 500 New Staff The recruitment plan for 2019-20, which has been signed off by the Executive Team, will see almost 500 additional frontline staff joining the service. The plan will see the continuation of the popular and successful student paramedic programme with eight cohorts of 48 students. In addition, the Trust is hoping to attract 90 graduate paramedics from the four universities that the Trust works with; Coventry, Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Wolverhampton. Director of Workforce and Organisational Development, Kim Nurse, said: “This is a really ambitious programme which shows just how committed the Trust is to patient care; it is one of the most ambitious in the country and builds on our excellent record in this area. We have also seen a reduction in the number of staff leaving the Trust which is also great news.” Chief Executive Anthony Marsh added: “This programme of training and education will enable us to continue to put paramedics on all vehicles, which we know enhances patient care. When we look around the country, we see some services with only 30% of ambulances with a paramedic on board, you can see the level of investment that we are putting into our frontline services.”

July Aug Oct Oct Dec Dec Dec Feb Feb Total Student Paramedics 29th 12th 7th 14th 2nd 13th 17th 24th 48 48 48 48 48 48 48 48 384 Graduate Paramedics 30th 17th 45 45 90

News…….

Stafford Paramedic Grateful Family Reunited with Lifesaving Crew A man who suffered a cardiac arrest at a Meets Baby Thomas football match in August has been reunited A paramedic from Tollgate Hub had with the staff who helped to save his life. the pleasure of meeting a baby boy Donnington-based Paramedic Paddy who he helped to deliver last year. McCartney was working at the Wolves v Paramedic James Champion Manchester City match with Senior responded to a maternity case along Operations Manager Liz Parkes in August with his crewmate in the early hours when they were called to a cardiac arrest just of 11th November last year. When after kick-off. When the duo arrived by Brian’s they arrived, mum Laura was in the side he was already being given excellent late stages of labour and, with the CPR by those first on scene. They continued advanced life support and the crews help, delivered a healthy baby team managed to achieve a ROSC and Brian was successfully discharged boy a short time later on scene. In from hospital. Early in December, Wolves organised a get together for the December, the family made contact family at the ground so they could reunite with everyone involved in his care with the Patient Experience team as on the day. Sadly, Liz and Paddy couldn’t attend but after liaising with the they wanted to say thank you to patient’s daughter, Christine, the pair met up with Brian, his wife and two children at RAF Cosford on 27th December where they were introduced. James and his crewmate for their Paddy said: “It was really good to see Brian, and great outcome for him and help that day. Mum Laura, her his family. It proves that early recognition of a patient in cardiac arrest, husband, their young daughter and effective CPR and defibrillation can sometimes achieve a ROSC and a their new born son visited Tollgate better chance of survival.” Pictured (l to r): The patient’s daughter Christine where baby Thomas Howard had a and son-in-law Richard, paramedic Paddy, Brian and his wife Sue. cuddle from Paramedic James and the family got to pass on their Sandwell Hub Welcomes New HWB Champions appreciation in person. Tony Iommi, After the indulgence of the festive period, staff at Sandwell Hub have started Stafford Senior Operations 2019 with a health kick in a bid to improve the health and wellbeing of their Manager, said: “Well done to James colleagues. The Trust recently trained a number of new Health and and his crewmate for helping to Wellbeing Champions at the hub, bringing the total to six. Three of the bring Thomas into the world. It’s so champions are part of the Trust’s initiative with Slimming World and are nice that the family made the effort promoting the healthy lifestyle to colleagues by providing the hub with to come and personally thank the different healthy meal and snack options during their break. In addition to crew and, of course, to see Thomas embarking on Dry January, to refrain from alcohol for the month, a number again!” of staff also plan to lose weight too. They have each had a private weigh in and will be supporting each other through the journey, with some healthy competition too! HWB Champion, Katie Stevens, was recently interviewed on various local radio stations as well as in The Radio Times to promote the health and wellbeing initiative and talk about her personal weight loss journey through Slimming World where she’s lost a staggering 3st 10lbs to date. The HWB Champions are also set to organise attendance at a 10K Inflatable fun run in Coventry where they already have 20 staff signed up and set to take part.

News…….

Some Hospitals Continue to Struggle As you will have read earlier in this Briefing, the decision has been made to create a Strategic Capacity Cell (page 4). The decision comes as new figures show just how much some hospital have been struggling to cope with the current demand levels. Despite a mild December, since the beginning of the year, there has been a noticeable increase in activity with a reduction in hospital bed capacity. The number of hospitals going to the top level of pressure has increased on previous years the four hour performance and 12-hour breaches in Emergency Departments have increased as have ambulance handover delays. The joint NHS England and NHS Improvement planning guidance explicitly states that: ‘Acute trusts must always accept handover of patients within 15 minutes of an ambulance arriving at the ED or other urgent admission facility’. WMAS Commissioning Director, Mark Docherty, said: “Over the last two years, the number of over hour delays has more than doubled for the month of January; as a Trust we have lost over 8,700 hours of ambulance time in handover delays which equates to over 700 twelve hours shifts or 25 every day during January! Some health economies and hospitals are under significant pressure which will only deteriorate if wintery conditions materialise, yet some acute trusts are coping well with demand managed effectively. We hope that by working in partnership with the regulators, commissioners, primary care and hospitals, we can make a real change in the way patients are dealt with which can only benefit them.”

Meet Our New Medical Director Dr Hodegere joined the Trust in December and works part time for two days per week. He has had a varied NHS career, starting as an anaesthetist in 2004 and then briefly moving through various surgical specialities and emergency medicine before joining general practice. He has worked as a GP since 2012 and been in management for the last five years in primary care before joining WMAS. As well as WMAS, he works as a clinical lead in a community setting. Married with a young family, he also enjoys watching cricket. Dr Hodegere said: “I am very excited to be a part of an outstanding organisation and I hope I will contribute my share in maintaining this status and in its future developments. My role is to provide clinical direction to the Trust Board and to take responsibility of the medical leadership in the organisation.”

Nikki Takes Up Role as Safeguarding Manager With Safeguarding becoming an increasingly important part of the work we do as an ambulance service; the Trust has moved quickly to find a replacement for Carly Manning who has left to take up a Matron role in the acute sector. Our new Safeguarding Manager and Prevent Lead is Nikki Albutt. She has been with the Trust for over 20 years with the last 10 spent as an OM based at Dudley. Nikki said: “I’m really looking forward to the new challenges that being part of the Safeguarding team will bring. I am responsible for the region and aim to look at ways of improving our referral system with external agencies and look at innovative ways of reaching out to staff to provide best practice when dealing with safeguarding, care and welfare concerns.”

Ambulance Misses Out at NTAs After making it to the final five nominees at the National Television Awards, BBC One’s Ambulance was sadly pipped at the post by Paul O’Grady’s For the Love of Dogs. The awards ceremony was held at the O2 in London and broadcast live on ITV. Representing ‘Ambulance’ was the fantastic team from Dragonfly TV, Paramedic Tasha Starkey who appeared in episode six of series 3, WMAS Press Officer Jamie Arrowsmith as well as NWAS staff Elly and Salman. Despite huge support from fans of the show, it just wasn’t quite enough to scoop the award second time round having missed out last year to Gogglebox. Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Marsh, said: “Despite not winning at the NTAs this week, I am immensely proud of the staff who featured in the programme and the way in which Dragonfly portrayed the incredible work of my ambulance service. Well done to all.”

News…….

Staff Come Together to Remember Mark Staff, family and friends came together in Liverpool to remember a fallen colleague from Stoke Hub who passed away recently. Mark Di Paola, a student paramedic, died suddenly last month aged 37. Two coach-loads of staff travelled north from Stoke Hub to pay their final respects to Mark and formed a guard of honour at Anfield Crematorium to greet the arrival of the hearse. The funeral cortege was accompanied by a motorcycle outrider where it was met by the Chief Officer and a Colour Party before passing through the ranks of colleagues who had come to pay their respects. Senior Operations Manager for Stoke, Mark Chapman, said: “This was a fitting send off for Mark who was very well liked by all of his colleagues in Stoke and he will be sadly missed. Under- standably, this has been a difficult time for us all, but we are extremely grateful for the level of support shown from colleagues around the region who came in and worked in the area to allow our members of staff to attend the funeral.”

Ex-teacher Jailed for 999 Harassment and Attack A former teacher who rang the emergency services repeatedly with nuisance calls and assaulted a paramedic has been sent back to jail. Kevin Byrne, 57, was jailed last year and served with a criminal behaviour order not to harass the police and ambulance services. Yet on the day he was released from prison, he again made numerous calls to the emergency services and at one point assaulted a paramedic and a hospital security guard. Shrewsbury Crown Court was told that Byrne, of Church Stretton, swore at an ambulance crew who attended his address and made sexual comments to a female paramedic. Later, he had to be restrained by ambulance staff after saying he wanted to fight them. At court he was sentenced to 12 months in prison after previously admitting two counts of breaching his order, and four counts of assault.

Court Lets Down Staff, Again The Trust has again written to the Attorney General after an attacker was handed down an appalling lenient sentence after an horrendous incident. The man trapped a crew in an upstairs flat whilst brandishing knives at them. Thankfully they managed to escape. When police arrived in response to the emergency call, the man spat at them and was sufficiently threatening that he was tazered before being arrested. Despite the level of violence and the case appearing at Crown Court, where the man was charged with two counts of affray and two counts of common assault, he was only sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years. Trust Chief Executive, Anthony Marsh, said: “This must have been an horrific case for the crew to deal with at the time and the inevitable post incident feelings going forward. In the letter to the Attorney General we have expressed our utter dismay at the continued leniency of sentences involving people convicted of abusing my staff.” Staffside Lead, Stuart Gardner, added: “This is an appalling case where it is clear that the Judge has simply ignored the outraged feelings of the public to such acts. Once again, the Justice system has let down staff and frankly the country, and for it to come so soon after the new Emergency Services Workers Bill went on the statute books makes it even worse. There is no excuse for this sort of