13 May 2009
Ambulance services in England have been given a strong endorsement for the way they deal with people who have non-urgent medical problems.
Survey results released by the Care Quality Commission show that most of those who responded to the survey had a positive experience of the way they were looked after by the emergency ambulance service.
It was the first national survey targeted specifically at people whose conditions were assessed by ambulance call handlers as Category C - defined as non-urgent or non-life-threatening. These are given a lower priority by the ambulance services, behind conditions that are immediately life-threatening (Category A) or require urgent attention (Category B).
The survey covered Category C calls to all England's 11 ambulance trusts during the month of July 2008. Almost 4,000 people returned their questionnaires, a response rate of 45%.
Seventy-three per cent of respondents rated the overall care they were given as ‘excellent', while a further 25% said it was ‘good' or ‘very good'.
Most people (82% of those who were attended by ambulance staff at the scene) said their care and treatment were ‘definitely' explained in a way they could fully understand, while 15% felt it was explained ‘to some extent'.
Cynthia Bower, Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission, said: "To enable improvements to be made to the quality of care that the NHS provides, it is vital that people are asked about their experiences and what they think of their local health services.
"It is really encouraging to see that patients are so positive about the way ambulance trusts handle non-urgent calls. While more broadly there are aspects of the ambulance service that need to improve, patients have given trusts a real vote of confidence in this area. That is very good news."
Over a full year (2007-08), 7.2 million calls were made to the emergency ambulance services, of which over a quarter (2.1 million) were classed as Category C. This covers a wide range of conditions, from earache or fainting to minor wounds or non-dangerous injuries.
As well as showing that the great majority of people were content with the overall care they received, the Category C survey found they were also positive about specific aspects, particularly waiting times and how staff dealt with them at the scene.
Almost all (98%) of the respondents were attended ‘at the scene' by the ambulance service (either by an ambulance or by someone in a car or on a motorcycle). Although there is no target waiting time for Category C cases, of those who responded to the survey just 4% felt that help should have arrived ‘a lot sooner' and 8% said it could have been ‘a bit sooner'.
Survey respondents had a high level of trust and confidence in ambulance staff who attended them at the scene (which in 81% of cases was their own home). Ninety-one per cent of respondents ‘definitely' had trust and confidence in staff and 90% were ‘definitely' reassured by them.
Nearly a quarter of the respondents (23%) were not taken to hospital by ambulance. Of these, 95% agreed with the decision. Just over half (53%) of those not taken to hospital were referred to another organisation or another part of the NHS, such as their GP, a nurse, an accident and emergency department or NHS Direct.
Of those respondents who were experiencing pain at the time, 75% felt the ambulance staff had done everything they could to control their pain, while 19% said they had ‘to some extent', and 6% believed they had not done everything they could.
The survey, which was co-ordinated by the Picker Institute, also asked people how they were dealt with over the telephone. All 999 calls to the ambulance service are assessed by operators in a control room to determine how the call will be responded to. The survey showed that in most cases someone else had called on behalf of the respondent - less than a third (29%) had spoken to the control room themselves. Of those respondents who had spoken directly to a control room operator, most had found them to be reassuring and courteous.
As well as deciding on the level of response, control room operators may pass the caller on to clinically-trained staff who can assess the patient's needs and provide advice over the phone. Of the survey respondents who said their call was passed on to a telephone adviser, 55% rated the quality of advice they were given over the phone as ‘excellent', 33% as ‘very good', 9% as ‘good' and 2% as ‘fair'. One per cent said it was ‘poor' or ‘very poor'.
The results will be used by CQC in its annual assessment of trusts, as part of the 2008-09 annual health check.
Ends
For further information please contact Ray Veasey in the CQC press office on 0207 448 9313 or out of hours on 07917 232 143.
Notes to editors
The Category C survey was co-ordinated for the NHS Patient Survey Programme by Picker Institute Europe. Details of the methodology can be found at: http://www.nhssurveys.org/
About the CQC: Snippet for press releases
About the Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.
We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find to help people choose care.