Jean Frickel
21 Jun 2023 · Coroner Kate Sutherland · North Wales East and Central
This report repeats 1 earlier warning, and was raised again 1 time later. See the linked reports.
The coroner's concerns
1. ambulance offload delays due to social care shortages
“There was evidence from WAST and BCUHB that improvements had been made internally within their organisations. It seems that patient flow i.e. those patients who are ready to be discharged from hospital but are unable to be discharged due to insufficiencies in social care means that ambulances are unable to offload patients into the Emergency Department which then causes the community delays as ambulances are not readily available.”
2. continuing ambulance arrival delays
“I remain significantly concerned that delays are continuing and that deaths will continue to occur into the future.”
3. lack of strategic plan and progress tracking
“Specifically, I require responses to the following: 1. Extent of working relationship between WAST, BCU and North Wales Local Authorities to address the above issues; and 2. Extent of progress between WAST, BCU and North Wales Local Authorities in addressing the above issues; and Extent of Strategic plan of action / improvement plan to address the above issues.”
Linked reports
Identical hazardConfidence 0.90 · high
Earlier report
“there remain wholly unacceptable delays with patients being kept waiting for long periods in ambulances and ambulance resources consequently being unavailable for allocation to other calls”
This report
“It seems that patient flow i.e. those patients who are ready to be discharged from hospital but are unable to be discharged due to insufficiencies in social care means that ambulances are unable to offload patients into the Emergency Department”
Identical hazardConfidence 0.92 · high
This report
“ambulances are unable to offload patients into the Emergency Department which then causes the community delays as ambulances are not readily available.”
Later report
“the reason for the delay was due to ambulances waiting to offload patients at hospitals, in accordance with the ambulance's duty of care, and therefore not responding to emergency calls as is their purpose.”
Responses
No published response was found on judiciary.uk.