11/06/2013

Download Subtitles

Transcript

:00:15. > :00:21.the programme tonight, and 999 call for the East Midlands ambulance

:00:21. > :00:31.service after a scathing report indicates a lack of accountability

:00:31. > :00:32.

:00:32. > :00:38.and a sense of helplessness. Flying the flag for the M11 corridor. She

:00:38. > :00:43.went to hospital to get treatment for her skin condition. Within weeks

:00:43. > :00:48.she was told her unborn baby would die. And we pay tribute to Sir Henry

:00:48. > :00:58.Cecil, described by his colleagues as the best horse trainer the UK has

:00:58. > :01:10.

:01:10. > :01:12.ever had. Good evening. The region's main ambulance service is facing a

:01:12. > :01:15.major re-organisation tonight after a scathing report into its

:01:15. > :01:18.performance. The report follows a dogged campaign by the region's MPs,

:01:18. > :01:21.worried that the chaotic service was costing lives. The review found that

:01:21. > :01:24.the East of England Ambulance Service has failed on every aspect

:01:24. > :01:27.of the assessment. Here are some of the findings. The trust has made a

:01:27. > :01:31.relatively simple job too difficult. It found there was a lack of

:01:31. > :01:37.accountability and that the trust board hadn't listened. We will hear

:01:37. > :01:40.from the author of the report after this from Andrew Sinclair. Behind

:01:40. > :01:44.the report are the experience of hundreds of people who feel they

:01:44. > :01:50.have been let down, like this family. Their baby was born

:01:51. > :01:56.prematurely after his mother suffered potentially fatal

:01:56. > :02:01.bleeding. Her husband had to drive her to hospital because the nearest

:02:01. > :02:06.one was 25 miles away. He was begging on the phone to get an

:02:06. > :02:16.ambulance. You want the expert medical help, not just getting to

:02:16. > :02:21.hospital. You wanted someone to take over, didn't you? Yes. And this GP

:02:21. > :02:30.in Suffolk who is seriously ill patients have sometimes faced

:02:30. > :02:37.unacceptable delays. They called for an ambulance and anticipated the

:02:37. > :02:42.waiting time would be eight minutes only to be told the ambulance had

:02:42. > :02:47.been redirected and the next one was on its way from Ipswich, over 30

:02:47. > :02:57.minutes. The report follows a year of controversy over response times.

:02:57. > :02:58.

:02:58. > :03:04.It has become one of the main political issues of this region.

:03:04. > :03:09.affirms many other concerns that I and many other MPs across the region

:03:09. > :03:13.have been raising the several years now. We need to make sure that

:03:13. > :03:18.unlike the 2011 report, this report results in a clear change. There

:03:18. > :03:23.have been systemic failures of quality of care that has been

:03:23. > :03:30.delivered to patients and it is time the ambulance service got behind a

:03:30. > :03:35.new management. The report calls for a shake-up in the way management is

:03:35. > :03:42.handled. There has been no clarity, no one taking responsibility and the

:03:42. > :03:51.trust doesn't even seem to know how many staff it needs. The government

:03:51. > :04:01.brought in this man to write the report to tell the trust where it is

:04:01. > :04:05.

:04:05. > :04:08.going wrong, and now it knows. Dr Marsh who compiled the report, has

:04:08. > :04:11.spent 27 years with the Ambulance Service and has been involved in

:04:11. > :04:14.improving several around the country. Earlier tonight I asked if

:04:14. > :04:17.the East of England Service was one of the worst he'd seen. It is

:04:17. > :04:19.certainly one of the most challenged ambulance services but we need to be

:04:19. > :04:23.clear the staff are working really hard, and as a consequence of their

:04:23. > :04:28.professionalism we are already seeing some improvement. I am also

:04:28. > :04:33.mindful that we need to do more and that is what I intend to do, to

:04:33. > :04:39.support them and to share their commitment to bring about

:04:39. > :04:43.improvement in standards. Concerns were brought about waiting times

:04:44. > :04:48.several years ago, and now you have come in and it seems like within a

:04:48. > :04:53.matter of days you have come up with ways to solve the problem so was the

:04:53. > :04:57.previous team incompetent or helpless? Firstly there has been a

:04:57. > :05:03.whole raft of competing by at ease which the trust needed to pay

:05:03. > :05:11.attention to. I don't believe they paid enough attention to having

:05:11. > :05:20.enough staff to respond to all of the 999 calls, particularly in the

:05:20. > :05:24.rural communities. As a result of that, the staff felt unsupported and

:05:24. > :05:29.there were insufficient numbers of paramedics to be able to deal with

:05:29. > :05:34.the workload. What I set out in my report and recommendations is to

:05:34. > :05:39.look at the organisation, to improve the efficiency of the way in which

:05:39. > :05:46.the organisation is run, and to invest those savings into increasing

:05:46. > :05:54.the number of paramedics and enhancing the number of paramedics

:05:54. > :05:59.-- ambulances available. The staff morale is very low, who would want

:05:59. > :06:04.to work there? Ambulance services have a good reputation for

:06:04. > :06:11.recruiting people to go on to become graduate paramedics. I don't believe

:06:11. > :06:18.that will be a problem. We need an action plan so that we can be proud

:06:18. > :06:21.of East of England ambulance service again. There have been around three

:06:21. > :06:25.so-called turnaround plans that have been put forward recently and all of

:06:25. > :06:30.them have been announced to great fanfare, and they said they would be

:06:30. > :06:35.the key to saving this service and yet you are saying they don't cut

:06:35. > :06:41.it. Can we be assured in this region that your plan will make a

:06:41. > :06:45.difference? Absolutely. The organisation have accepted my

:06:45. > :06:51.report, and once they have implemented the recommendations this

:06:51. > :06:56.plan will work. The report that I have set out, very clearly a set of

:06:56. > :07:00.recommendations, the organisation has four weeks to submit their plan

:07:00. > :07:05.and then I will help them to implement the action is set out in

:07:05. > :07:10.that plan and I am determined to do that. You are right, there have been

:07:10. > :07:13.a number of reviews conducted into the East of England ambulance

:07:13. > :07:18.service but none of them have been as wide-ranging as the one I have

:07:18. > :07:28.been asked to conduct and none of them have been lead on this scale by

:07:28. > :07:29.

:07:29. > :07:33.a serving chief officer. And if you've got something to say about

:07:33. > :07:36.today's ambulance service report, do get in touch. We'd like to hear your

:07:36. > :07:44.experiences, good and bad. You can contact us in the usual way.

:07:44. > :07:48.Remember to leave a contact telephone number.

:07:48. > :07:51.This part of the world has Silicon Fen, London has Silicon Roundabout -

:07:51. > :07:53.two of the country's leading high tech clusters at either end of

:07:53. > :07:55.what's called the London Stansted Cambridge Corridor. Today business

:07:55. > :08:03.leaders met to encourage more science technology and innovation

:08:03. > :08:12.along its route. The structure of the human gene --

:08:12. > :08:21.gene known discovered in the 1950s, and fibre optics are now across the

:08:22. > :08:26.globe, but they were invented in Harlow in Essex. Some technological

:08:26. > :08:30.breakthroughs in this corridor linking Peterborough, Cambridge and

:08:30. > :08:34.London, and today there was a conference to encourage more

:08:34. > :08:39.innovation. We are giving more powers to areas that previously had

:08:39. > :08:42.been tied up in Westminster and Whitehall, and saying if you have

:08:42. > :08:48.got good ideas, if you can think of ways in which you could make your

:08:48. > :08:58.area is even more successful, we will transfer the resources to be

:08:58. > :09:04.

:09:04. > :09:08.able to do that. They are leaders from across the region. The region

:09:08. > :09:18.benefits from 65% of the UK's research and development money.

:09:18. > :09:21.

:09:21. > :09:25.Stansted is now working to double its passenger to 35 million a year.

:09:25. > :09:29.Hopefully we can bring the roots to Stansted and therefore over time

:09:29. > :09:33.people will start to use them and that creates this momentum of

:09:33. > :09:38.growth. King's Cross is going through a massive redevelopment and

:09:38. > :09:41.that is what companies along the corridor are calling for, better

:09:41. > :09:47.infrastructure and improvements to the road and rail, which will

:09:47. > :09:51.attract more businesses and bring growth, they say. It is really

:09:51. > :09:57.important we join up with London because Cambridge has such a lot of

:09:57. > :10:02.depth to offer. We are all trying to grow the economy in the UK and if

:10:02. > :10:06.Cambridge can help that would be ideal. Today was about better links

:10:06. > :10:15.between London and Cambridge, with a world leading university and

:10:15. > :10:17.high-tech cluster. A woman from Cambridgeshire had to

:10:17. > :10:20.take the decision to terminate her pregnancy because the treatment

:10:20. > :10:23.she'd been given for acne meant her daughter wouldn't have survived

:10:23. > :10:26.after birth. Sarah Sharma was given Isotretinoin, which is not suitable

:10:26. > :10:30.for expectant women. In the UK there are no specific regulations

:10:30. > :10:35.governing the prescription of this medication. At 21 weeks pregnant,

:10:35. > :10:43.Sarah Sharma had to deliver her dead baby. Now she's warning others about

:10:43. > :10:47.the drug's dangers. It was soon after marriage that

:10:47. > :10:52.Sarah Sharma and her husband looked forward to their future together,

:10:52. > :10:58.one day perhaps starting a family. At the time she was suffering from

:10:58. > :11:03.acne so she was given Isotretinoin, a powerful drug used to treat severe

:11:03. > :11:09.acne. It should never be given to expectant mothers. Within weeks she

:11:09. > :11:15.became ill, unbeknown to her she was already expecting a girl. When did

:11:15. > :11:19.you realise there may be a complication? At the 20 week scan we

:11:19. > :11:25.went for routine anomaly scan, we found out we were having a little

:11:25. > :11:30.girl. Then the specialist advised they had seen a complication with

:11:30. > :11:40.the baby's brains. She had a lot of fluid in the brain and the prognosis

:11:40. > :11:59.

:11:59. > :12:04.they gave was that she would never child and life now has a new

:12:04. > :12:09.meaning. If just one person can avoid the pain and the stress and

:12:09. > :12:14.trauma and heartache of everything we have been through, then it is

:12:14. > :12:24.worth its weight in gold because I wouldn't wish anything like this on

:12:24. > :12:32.

:12:32. > :12:41.anyone. Woman -- Sarah Sharma hopes her raw deal will help to raise

:12:41. > :12:44.questions... New CCTV pictures have been released

:12:44. > :12:47.in connection with the murder of Jordan Maguire in Luton. The

:12:47. > :12:50.20--year-old was stabbed to death on the Marsh Farm estate on the 26th

:12:50. > :12:54.May. The footage shows a man in the Nisa convenience store on the estate

:12:54. > :12:56.on the day of the murder. Officers believe he is the same man seen

:12:56. > :12:59.pushing a bike on other CCTV footage.

:12:59. > :13:02.This footage is early on in the afternoon, at about five o'clock.

:13:02. > :13:05.The murder tragically happened three hours later so this gentleman has

:13:05. > :13:15.been in and around the state during the course of the afternoon. If

:13:15. > :13:32.

:13:32. > :13:35.people have seen him out them to ring the police and let us know.

:13:35. > :13:38.A verdict of accidental death was recorded today at the inquest into

:13:38. > :13:41.the death of a Honda test driver killed at a leading testing ground.

:13:41. > :13:44.David Allen died at the Millbrook proving ground in July last year. He

:13:44. > :13:47.was a "highly skilled talented driver" but the inquest heard that

:13:47. > :13:49.excess speed was the most likely cause of the accident.

:13:49. > :13:51.Six police officers who tackled a nightclub brawl are being

:13:51. > :13:54.investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. A

:13:54. > :13:56.student and two door staff were arrested outside Element's nightclub