CHANGES in overnight cover in Okehampton for ambulance crews and doctors will not result in a reduction in the level of service patients receive. That was the view of ambulance and medics chiefs who visited Okehampton on Monday to defend proposed changes in out of hours cover in the area, due to come into force in the next few months. Representatives from Westcountry Ambulance Service NHS Trust and Devon Doctors on Call were questioned by members of West Devon Borough Council?s overview and scrutiny committee meeting on their concerns about the changes. But members of Okehampton?s ambulance staff said what they heard at the meeting had not reassured them but had deepened their concerns that ?patient care was going to suffer?. Under the proposed modernisaton scheme, there would be no front-line ambulance cover in Okehampton between 2am and 6am, but a rapid response vehicle instead. Ambulance staff said they had concerns about their own safety as well as that of the people they were trying to treat. Staff question the safety implications of using single-manned rapid response vehicles instead of a two-person ambulance crew at a time of night when they might be called out to situations inflamed by alcohol. Stephen Prior, director of operations for Westcountry Ambulance Service NHS Trust, told councillors the days of ambulances being based in one town ready to respond in that town and a narrow surrounding area were gone. Now the service used predictive analysis to pinpoint the most effective places for ambulances to be able to provide a network of cover at different times of the day. Mr Prior said with the addition of a rapid response vehicle, which would operate in the town overnight starting from the busy period of 8pm, Okehampton was, in fact, getting more ambulance service cover than it had at present. He said: ?In Okehampton at the moment, you have 24-hour cover. We are proposing a move to ten-hour shifts and the addition of a paramedic car, resulting in 28.5 hours of ambulance cover in Okehampton. Mr Prior said decisions about level of cover were based on analysis of patterns of demand. He said statistics showed the service operated under capacity at night and over capacity during the day and the proposed changes were about trying to strike the right balance. Mr Prior acknowledged that paramedic cars could only take people to hospital if they were in a position to get into a car, but he said these cars now carried around 90% of the diagnostic equipment which ambulances had. Cllr David Weeks, who represents Exbourne, said as the new Okehampton Hospital had a maternity unit, he hoped Mr Prior would be able to give reassurances that the changes would not affect the ability of an ambulance to respond if there were difficulties with a birth. Mr Prior said that throughout the last six months, there had been just three incidents of hospital staff calling to request an ambulance because of birth complications Mayor of Okehampton Cllr Tony Leech said he still feared the moves represented a ?backwards step?. He was concerned at the ?double whammy? of Okehampton losing both its town-based ambulance cover for four hours overnight and a doctor on call based at Okehampton Hospital. ?They have taken broad statistics from the past up to now, but this town is increasing in l Continued on page 2
