Browse content similar to Dial 999... and Wait?. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The Government has got to make sure that those forces that are failing | :00:02. | :00:07. | |
are brought up to the standard of those that are not. And why dialing | :00:07. | :00:17. | |
:00:17. | :00:25. | ||
999 does not always mean that they June 11th last year. It is the | :00:25. | :00:29. | |
middle of the night and this antique jewellery store in Surrey | :00:29. | :00:34. | |
has some unwelcome visitors. It is something the own Angela French | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
hoped she would never see. It is clearly well-planned. They know | :00:37. | :00:41. | |
exactly where they are going. cased the joint. They must have | :00:41. | :00:45. | |
been inside and outside, looking from outside and working out which | :00:45. | :00:51. | |
cabinet had silver in and which were worth targeting. Until two | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
years ago they had not been a single robbery in this shop but | :00:54. | :00:59. | |
since then there have been four like this at two of them saw the | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
thieves making off with tens of thousands of pounds worth of stock. | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
In every occasion they were long gone before the police arrived. How | :01:07. | :01:14. | |
long from the initial alarm going off? About 20 minutes. 20 minutes? | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
Did that surprise you? Very much. You think the police are around but | :01:18. | :01:22. | |
they are not at all. During the last raid on the shop, the raiders | :01:22. | :01:27. | |
reversed a car into a battering ram to force the door. This time the | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
police were quicker, arriving in 10 minutes. But again the gang had | :01:31. | :01:38. | |
fled. If they actually had more patrols and cars... They say there | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
are four in Waverley each night. If they just had one going round | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
Haslemere at night, which is a big area, surely that would be a | :01:46. | :01:51. | |
deterrent. Surrey police say that after the 4th raid, police officers | :01:51. | :01:55. | |
were deployed on strategic roads to trace the offenders. They admit | :01:55. | :01:58. | |
that around the time the shop was first targeted they failed to | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
respond to about a quarter of emergency calls within 15 minutes. | :02:02. | :02:08. | |
They say the response times are now improving. But that is cold comfort | :02:08. | :02:12. | |
to Angela French. To date nobody has been caught. You are forever | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
thinking when you go to bed that the telephone will win in the | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
middle of the night. It is horrible to get here and find the mess and | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
chaos, even worse than things being taken. Are incidents like this, | :02:25. | :02:29. | |
where police response times appear to be too slow, just bad luck or is | :02:29. | :02:34. | |
something else going on? I have been speaking to frontline police | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
officers from across the country. They did not want to be identified | :02:38. | :02:42. | |
but they say that huge budget cuts to policing over the past two years | :02:42. | :02:47. | |
are leading to longer emergency response times. Do you think that | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
potentially police officers or members of the public could be put | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
in danger because of these cuts? That is one thing I was discussing | :02:54. | :02:59. | |
with my partner tonight. I think it is an absolute inevitability. | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
felt safe in my role as a police officer for the last years but with | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
these cuts going on I feel that if I press that emergency button on my | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
radio, it will take longer for my colleagues to resist me. | :03:10. | :03:15. | |
communications regularly and routinely say they have up to four | :03:15. | :03:19. | |
emergency response jobs but quite often there are no units available. | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
The cuts to police funding from central Government are big. 20% by | :03:24. | :03:29. | |
2015 in England and Wales. Understandably, the police are not | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
happy. But one influential think- tank believes it is about time the | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
police became more efficient. think people in the emergency | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
services and the public services have got used to steady budget | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
increases for many years, particularly the police. So any | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
budget cut seems quite shocking to them. But it is still the case that | :03:49. | :03:54. | |
these services have never had more money than they have now. Huge | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
increases in spending compared to 10 years ago, with the police | :03:59. | :04:04. | |
having the most generous spending increases. In that time, a lot of | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
forces, I would say, have sat on their laurels and not taken tough | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
decisions about how they can organise themselves best. Somebody | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
is injuring your family? The issue has become a political battlefield. | :04:17. | :04:24. | |
The big question now is how officers on the ground to our | :04:24. | :04:32. | |
policing in the age of austerity. Adam Ashby and Lee Spencer of | :04:32. | :04:35. | |
emergency response officers in the Fife division of Greater Manchester | :04:35. | :04:45. | |
:04:45. | :04:45. | ||
Police. -- Oldham. They are on their way to help a fellow officer | :04:45. | :04:55. | |
:04:55. | :05:01. | ||
Our car gets there in six minutes, long enough for the situation to | :05:01. | :05:08. | |
have calmed down. No sooner have they arrived at the station with | :05:08. | :05:15. | |
the arrested man, but Adam and Lee are out on another call. This time | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
it is somebody feeling suicidal. Obviously this is more appropriate | :05:20. | :05:24. | |
for medical practitioners and police officers. But sometimes the | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
police are the only ones available to respond. We arrive within five | :05:28. | :05:32. | |
minutes, but before we can even get out of the car to investigate, | :05:32. | :05:37. | |
another emergency call comes in. think we have got to go somewhere. | :05:37. | :05:43. | |
We are on the move. Have you got a description? It is one of the pubs. | :05:43. | :05:51. | |
There is somebody in their kicking off. Is this an emergency call? | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
There are reports that a woman is being violent and threatening. The | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
last Government made all police forces signed a pledge which said | :05:58. | :06:01. | |
they had to attend her than emergencies like this within 15 | :06:01. | :06:08. | |
minutes and 20 within rural areas. -- urban emergencies. This was | :06:08. | :06:13. | |
abandoned in a drive to reduce red tape. Even so Adam and Lee are at | :06:13. | :06:17. | |
the call on the other side of Oldham in 10 minutes. But it is not | :06:17. | :06:22. | |
quite the emergency they had expected. Come on, stand up. There | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
is no sign of violence. Just a woman too drunk to look after | :06:27. | :06:33. | |
herself. Come and sit down over here. The officers cannot leave her | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
alone in this state. They have no choice but to take her home. | :06:37. | :06:42. | |
much have you had to drink tonight? The officers were on a priority | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
call, then they got this emergency call. So they had to come to this | :06:46. | :06:51. | |
first. Things are getting busier tonight. There are only so many | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
resources to go around and they have had to make a judgement about | :06:54. | :07:00. | |
what to attend. The impression I get tonight is that you have not | :07:00. | :07:05. | |
stopped. It has been one call after another. You have not even had a | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
five-minute break. It seems like you are operating at capacity. | :07:08. | :07:14. | |
would say that is fairly accurate. Individual officers in this | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
division are extremely dedicated. I am not the sort of person who is | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
going to let something bad happened to somebody, somebody get injured, | :07:23. | :07:29. | |
property damage, just so that I can have a break. Has he seen what has | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
been stolen from inside? He reckons it has been cleared out. Despite | :07:34. | :07:38. | |
the cuts, Greater Manchester police are among the best performers in | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
the country for their response times. Currently they attended 95% | :07:43. | :07:50. | |
of all emergency calls within 15 minutes. But even they sometimes | :07:50. | :07:57. | |
get it wrong. Last month, secondary as saw a man damaging vehicles in | :07:57. | :08:05. | |
this street in Oldham. -- Sikander saw a man. He dialled 999 but the | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
man started kicking down at the door to a house as he was on the | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
telephone. I said that he was kicking the door down and he had | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
gone into the house. Luckily the residents were not at home, but we | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
were dreading the fact that somebody could be at home and what | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
he could have potentially done. must have looked to you at that | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
point like there was an immediate threat to someone. It was more than | :08:26. | :08:33. | |
an immediate threat. By now the man was intimidating onlookers, but the | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
police were nowhere to be seen. By the time Sikander made his call, it | :08:38. | :08:43. | |
took them 40 minutes to arrive. The man was eventually detained, but | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
Sikander thinks the response was not good enough. How has this left | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
you feeling about the police? have lost confidence in the police. | :08:51. | :08:58. | |
We think that 999 might not get an emergency response. Local officers | :08:58. | :09:01. | |
go out to meet President and apologised. They said that human | :09:01. | :09:09. | |
error was to blame. -- local officers came out to meet residents | :09:09. | :09:12. | |
and apologised. The police have been telling us across the country | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
that incidents like this with unacceptably slow police response | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
times are happening more frequently. But the Government points to report | :09:19. | :09:22. | |
by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary published last year | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
that says that response times are being maintained. It turns out that | :09:27. | :09:32. | |
report surveyed only 10 police forces out of the 43 in England and | :09:32. | :09:40. | |
Wales about their response times. In six, they found improvements. We | :09:40. | :09:44. | |
decided to use the Freedom of Information Act to investigate | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
response times from every force in the UK. We found that the police | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
emergency response times vary significantly across the country | :09:52. | :10:00. | |
and even within force areas. Here are some of the worst areas that we | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
have found. In the London borough of Hillingdon, 20% of emergency | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
calls did not get a response within 15 minutes. For Derby, that figure | :10:09. | :10:15. | |
was 19% and in Dover, 28% of emergency calls did not see a | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
police officer on the scene within 15 minutes. When looking at | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
response times, it is hard to compare like with like as there is | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
no uniform way of recording statistics and each force has its | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
own geographical differences. But they do seem to be striking | :10:31. | :10:37. | |
disparities in response times around the country. Lord Mackenzie | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
was a policing adviser to the last Government. He believes that there | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
is a link between slow response times in some areas and Government | :10:45. | :10:51. | |
cuts. It is extremely worrying. The police are not going to get it | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
right every time but certainly I think the figures reflect the cuts | :10:54. | :10:59. | |
in real terms. I don't think you can put any other gloss on it, | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
quite frankly. I think the Government has clearly got to make | :11:02. | :11:05. | |
sure that those forces that are failing are brought up to the | :11:05. | :11:13. | |
standard of those that are not. they there at the moment? Weapons | :11:13. | :11:19. | |
involved? One reason why Greater Manchester Police has been able to | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
maintain its response times despite losing 900 staff could be that | :11:22. | :11:28. | |
crime is down by 12% here. But that is not the only reason. By | :11:28. | :11:31. | |
identifying people who use the service again and again, and | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
getting other agencies to deal with them, the force has reduced the | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
number of 999 calls. Now that money is tight, you have to look all the | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
time at what you repeat the dresses are, repeat offenders, getting them | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
early in the offending cycle. That helps take the pressure off the | :11:50. | :11:56. | |
officers. In Manchester, the cuts will continue. I hope that it will | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
not play out in things like emergency response but clearly the | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
public may notice that the police station is closing. It may be when | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
they phone us that we say, can you do it online? Do we really need to | :12:08. | :12:12. | |
send an officer to your address? The Government declined an | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
interview for this programme but told Panorama that the most | :12:15. | :12:21. | |
important target is cutting crime and that is down at 4.2% last year. | :12:21. | :12:25. | |
They have swept away red tape such as the policing pledge, they say, | :12:25. | :12:31. | |
to help police forces burgers on their core mission, to cut crime. - | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
- focus on their core mission. They say that they are focusing on | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
cutting back office functions. But is it feasible to keep cutting his | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
support staff without a noticeable impact on the front line? I think | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
there is a limit to how much we can cut in the back office, as it were, | :12:48. | :12:50. | |
without affecting frontline officers on the ground, frontline | :12:51. | :12:55. | |
policing as it is called. The response is about getting to the | :12:55. | :13:03. | |
receiving -- to the scene fairly quickly and that is about police | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
officers on the street at any one time. Over the next two years there | :13:07. | :13:12. | |
will be more cuts and some of them seem quite draconian. Wouldn't you | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
be concerned that at some point we will cross a line and the public | :13:16. | :13:21. | |
will notice a big difference? of course, but I cannot see why we | :13:21. | :13:25. | |
are anywhere near that line yet. The police have had 30 years of | :13:25. | :13:30. | |
steady spending increases. Their budgets compared to 10 years ago | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
are two-thirds higher than they used to be. We are nowhere near | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
that level, even with the cuts that they are planning to bring in. The | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
hope is that this financial pressure, which is overdue, against | :13:41. | :13:51. | |
the police forces to think again When it doms getting to you in an | :13:51. | :13:55. | |
emergency it's not just the police feels the heat. Get out, stay out, | :13:55. | :14:00. | |
call 999. Traditionally the Fire Service have the fastest response | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
times of all the emergency services. That makes sense, given a house | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
fire can double in size every minute if it's left unattended. Yet | :14:10. | :14:13. | |
Government figures out this summer show the average response time it a | :14:13. | :14:19. | |
house fire has gone up by 22% in the past ten years. That means | :14:19. | :14:23. | |
people are waiting more than a minute longer for help to arrive. A | :14:23. | :14:30. | |
minute that could mean the difference between life and death. | :14:30. | :14:36. | |
Coventry and a fire in a factory is spreading quickly. West Midlands | :14:36. | :14:40. | |
Fire Service are on the scene within six minutes. At its height | :14:40. | :14:47. | |
over 100 firefighters are deployed. There are propain cylinders outside | :14:48. | :14:51. | |
the building as well. For West Midlands fire brigade dealing with | :14:51. | :14:54. | |
an incident like this is getting increasingly difficult. In the last | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
two years, this region has been hit with cuts double the average in | :14:57. | :15:03. | |
England. More are on the way. The fire chief here is trying to raise | :15:03. | :15:08. | |
money and recognises the need for efficiency savings. In his worst | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
case scenario he may have to close 11 of their 30 fire stations and | :15:13. | :15:22. | |
Laos a third of his firefighters. What effect will it have on this | :15:22. | :15:26. | |
region if you lose a third of firefighters? People will be at | :15:26. | :15:29. | |
risk. The information will be more at risk. My firefighters will be | :15:29. | :15:33. | |
more at risk. It will take us longer to marshal our resources to | :15:33. | :15:36. | |
get them there in sufficient numbers to make that critical | :15:37. | :15:46. | |
intervention. Under that pressure, how can a fire brigade like West | :15:46. | :15:48. | |
Midlands cut costs and response times? Could the answer be | :15:48. | :15:56. | |
replacing up to a third of these with these? This is known as a | :15:56. | :16:00. | |
brigade response vehicle. Frbgts it is saving money on fuel in | :16:00. | :16:04. | |
comparison to front-line appliance. They're nimble in traffic as well. | :16:04. | :16:10. | |
We are able to get to an incident quicker. We may be able to | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
alleviate that incident going further out of control with some | :16:13. | :16:20. | |
quick actions. For firefighters on the ground, though, there are | :16:20. | :16:24. | |
concerns about the Brigade Response Vehicles or BRVs as they're known. | :16:24. | :16:28. | |
They hold only a minute's worth of water or foam. They're only | :16:28. | :16:34. | |
designed to put out small fires. You could have a BRV turn up at a | :16:34. | :16:38. | |
big incident and we've got a responsibility to help people. You | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
know, if they're in a dangerous scenario, we need to be in there | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
and help them. We're going to be putting lives, I know you shouldn't, | :16:47. | :16:51. | |
you want to go in there. This would have been a great as | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
well as, but we will have toint deuce it as an instead of. What's | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
the problem with that? There won't be the same weight of attack. They | :16:59. | :17:04. | |
won't deal with the full range of tasks that a current engine does. | :17:04. | :17:08. | |
These are quite good vehicles. They're perhaps coming to these | :17:08. | :17:11. | |
choices sooner than we would have done if it wasn't for the financial | :17:11. | :17:14. | |
climate. The Government is cutting funding by just over 3% in England. | :17:14. | :17:18. | |
The brigades that cover the big urban areas are funded by both | :17:18. | :17:23. | |
central and local government. The local authorities say because their | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
funding is decreasing, they have little but to make cuts too. That's | :17:27. | :17:31. | |
why brigades like West Midlands are so concerned. Ministers say the | :17:31. | :17:38. | |
public has nothing to worry about. Do you believe that large cuts | :17:38. | :17:44. | |
could cost lives, as some firefighters believe they could? | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
I don't believe that the evidence demonstrates that either. What we | :17:48. | :17:57. | |
have seen is a consistent downward number, downward trajectory in the | :17:57. | :18:02. | |
number of fatalities and injuries. At some point don't you have to | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
shout stop? If indeed in one area 11 out of 38 fire stations closed, | :18:07. | :18:13. | |
surely at some point you step in and say, this is unacceptable. | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
fire authority has to meet its statutory obligations under the | :18:16. | :18:21. | |
Fire Services act. It's never been suggested by any brigade, chief | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
officer, that isn't the case. The guardians of how that's delivered | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
at a local level are the Democratically elected local | :18:28. | :18:37. | |
Councilors. You stay there and the ambulance is on its way. So, what | :18:37. | :18:42. | |
about the third emergency service? Funding for the NHS has been ring- | :18:42. | :18:46. | |
fenced. So you'd imagine that the Ambulance Service wouldn't have to | :18:46. | :18:52. | |
worry about cuts. In fact, to meet rising costs, many ambulance trusts | :18:52. | :18:56. | |
have been asked to make huge efficiency savings. They too are | :18:56. | :19:03. | |
under pressure. Six weeks ago, Patricia Warbey had a particularly | :19:03. | :19:10. | |
nasty fall at home. She fell onto the floor, smashing her knee onto | :19:10. | :19:17. | |
the floor quite hard. She's got a replacement knee caps in both knees. | :19:17. | :19:22. | |
And she couldn't get back up. She knew she had hurt herself quite | :19:22. | :19:27. | |
badly. Unable to move, Patricia used her mobile to dial 999. Then | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
she waited, and waited. Always thinking the ambulance would arrive | :19:32. | :19:36. | |
any moment. After an hour with no sign of help arriving, she called | :19:36. | :19:45. | |
her daughter. Ten minutes later, I come to the house and we come in. | :19:45. | :19:50. | |
The Ambulance Service wasn't here. As there was still no ambulance | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
Melissa dialled 999 herself and not just once. She says over 40 minutes | :19:55. | :20:00. | |
she rang three times. Each time she was told that as her mum was | :20:00. | :20:06. | |
breathing and not bleeding, she wasn't a priority. I was scared for | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
her. It was horrible. It was really, really frightening. It's just not | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
nice watching somebody that you love lying there in pain and | :20:14. | :20:17. | |
there's nothing you can do. You have people on the other end of the | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
phone telling you that actually, that person lying there, that you | :20:22. | :20:28. | |
love dearly, isn't critical enough to come out and help straight away. | :20:28. | :20:33. | |
The ambulance arrived nearly two hours after the original call. By | :20:33. | :20:39. | |
then, Melissa's mum was shaking violently. I was led to believe | :20:39. | :20:49. | |
that if you phoned 999 an ambulance would arrive within 10, 15, 20 | :20:49. | :20:56. | |
minutes, half an hour at the moment. That's what my preconception was. | :20:56. | :20:59. | |
Patricia is still in hospital recovering from an operation to | :20:59. | :21:05. | |
repair her broken leg. East of England Ambulance Trust say the | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
information given to them was that there were no serious injuries. So | :21:09. | :21:14. | |
the patient was given a one-hour response time. The caller was told | :21:14. | :21:18. | |
to Fonebak if symptoms arose. They say as soon as they received new | :21:18. | :21:24. | |
information indicating an emergency, they dispatched an ambulance. But | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
there is some good news for Britain's Ambulance Service. | :21:27. | :21:32. | |
Earlier this year, it was announced for the first time all 12 trusts in | :21:32. | :21:38. | |
England hit a key Government target. They attended 75% of life- | :21:38. | :21:42. | |
threatening emergencies within eight minutes. One reason behind | :21:42. | :21:51. | |
the improvement is a measure called enhanced clinical triage, that | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
involves medical clinician as sesing a call to see how quick a | :21:55. | :22:02. | |
response is needed. Some cases people may be rung back and asked | :22:02. | :22:09. | |
further questions. Some trusts say this can help with some 900 calls a | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
week. You can't see the patients. Not all patients are fully aware | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
when they're in pain. There have been a number of occasions that the | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
triage hasn't worked and patients have been in difficulty and they | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
should have had a faster response. We've spoken to other | :22:25. | :22:30. | |
representatives from four trusts and we've also spoken to five front | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
line paramedics in stations around the country. Now they say that they | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
and their colleagues are concerned that clinical triage can be used to | :22:39. | :22:43. | |
hide failings in response times and to massage the success rate in | :22:43. | :22:49. | |
hitting that eight-minute target. They didn't want to appear on | :22:49. | :22:53. | |
camera for fear of loseing their jobs, but they allowed us to use | :22:53. | :22:59. | |
their statements. They told us they've had genuine emergencies | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
downgraded when the ambulance wasn't going to meet the deadline. | :23:02. | :23:07. | |
While some believe that low priority calls, where an ambulance | :23:07. | :23:11. | |
happens to be close by, are being upgraded to an emergency. We are | :23:11. | :23:15. | |
seeing jobs where they're being reprioritised. We know why it's | :23:15. | :23:19. | |
been downgraded because we're not hitting the targets if everything | :23:19. | :23:23. | |
remained correctly prioritised. Instead of life threatening, you | :23:23. | :23:27. | |
can get to it and it turns out to be nothing of a sort. It was put | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
down as that possibly because you were near to the call and you'll | :23:31. | :23:34. | |
get there within eight minutes lot of colleagues are wondering, is | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
this being done on purpose? I can't prove that, certainly from | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
experience after ten years in the job, it points in that direction. | :23:43. | :23:46. | |
The Department of Health told us that they have no evidence that | :23:46. | :23:50. | |
trusts are trying to meet targets in this way. But they said if they | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
were, it would be taken extremely seriously and care the quality | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
commission would be asked to investigate. They also told us that | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
callers may well be put in different categories according to | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
the information they give, but that the aim is to provide the most | :24:05. | :24:12. | |
appropriate clinical response. One indicator of how well ambulance | :24:12. | :24:15. | |
trusts are doing is in how they deal with some of the most serious | :24:15. | :24:20. | |
cases. Like stroke. When a stroke strikes, the damage spreads like a | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
fire in the brain. This Government campaign highlighted the importance | :24:24. | :24:29. | |
of recognising the symptoms of a stroke and calling an ambulance. | :24:29. | :24:39. | |
:24:39. | :24:39. | ||
When stroke strikes, act fast. Acting fast is the key to treating | :24:39. | :24:44. | |
strokes. This is Nikki Camp. Being treated quickly potentially saved | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
her life and probably saved her from lifelong disabilities. Fear of | :24:50. | :24:54. | |
having something permanent when I have the next 40, touch wood, years | :24:54. | :24:58. | |
of my life left to live with potential speech disability or a | :24:58. | :25:04. | |
physical disability trying to raise a family, not being able to work | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
again, or the worst case scenario thaw don't survive. The treatment | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
is more successful the quicker it's given. The ambulance got to her | :25:13. | :25:21. | |
within ten minutes and she was at a specialist unit within the hour. | :25:21. | :25:28. | |
Would you make a grip for me. new statistics reveal many stroke | :25:28. | :25:31. | |
victims aren't as fortunate as this and end up waiting too long. These | :25:31. | :25:36. | |
figures for England have only been made public since 2011, so it's | :25:36. | :25:40. | |
impossible to say if things are getting better or worse. What is | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
clear is that there's room for improvement. Only 63% of stroke | :25:45. | :25:50. | |
victims are making it to an acute unit within the crucial first hour. | :25:50. | :25:59. | |
So much for fast. If we're getting 63% of patients to hyperacute | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
stroke units within the hour, then we're failing 37% of patients with | :26:04. | :26:08. | |
strokes within England. That is a cause for concern, because we've | :26:08. | :26:11. | |
all got family and we all know people that may have suffered with | :26:12. | :26:19. | |
stroke. We would want to identify them quickly. -- and ensure they're | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
in the appropriate place as quickly as possible. The Department of | :26:23. | :26:28. | |
Health in England means specialist care means there are fewer fatality | :26:28. | :26:32. | |
from stroke each year. They say trusts are performing well but | :26:32. | :26:35. | |
admit these indicators show some areas where improvement can be made. | :26:35. | :26:38. | |
They say they'll work with local NHS organisations to make sure that | :26:38. | :26:44. | |
happens. The thought of an ambulance not arriving in time or | :26:44. | :26:48. | |
not arriving at all, perhaps in some cases, would be pretty | :26:48. | :26:52. | |
unimaginable. You expect to dial 999, ask for an ambulance and for | :26:52. | :26:57. | |
an ambulance to be dispatched and to arrive in a timely fashion. | :26:57. | :27:04. | |
it hadn't turned up, we'd have been, well, I might not... Yeah, it's | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
pretty unimaginable. I try not to think about that. Those who run the | :27:07. | :27:11. | |
emergency services know that the challenges of the next few years | :27:11. | :27:15. | |
will be enormous. And right across the country, they're finding ways | :27:15. | :27:20. | |
to meet the new mantra of the age of austerity, doing more with less. | :27:20. | :27:28. |