Health boss expresses ‘disgust’ at ambulances waiting outside hospitals

Dale Spridgeon, Local Democracy Reporter

A health board boss has expressed “disgust” at seeing ambulances waiting outside hospitals and “sadness” that 24 hour waits in A&E are “becoming the norm” in north Wales.

Paul Andrew, a former paramedic who is now Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board’s Integrated Health Community Director of Operations (West), made the comments during a meeting with Anglesey councillors.

The health board’s chairman Dyfed Edwards also told the council’s partnership and regeneration scrutiny committee that emergency rooms have become a “drop-in for everyone” and that it wouldn’t change until people were “aware of other options”.

During the meeting, Lligwy councillor Cllr Euryn Morris asked: “Do you think 24-hour waits for care in A&E is the norm now? I have a load of cases where people have been sitting overnight in ambulances.

“Patients are there for 24 hours instead of going in and being sent to wherever they need to go.

“I’ve sat in A&E, there were problems, people who should not have been there, people who were drunk, putting strain on the service.”

Mr Edwards said: “Regarding A&E, I think people’s experiences of care are different. I do believe the expectation now is if somebody from Llangefni needed to go to A&E, they would expect to be there longer than two or three years ago.

“A&E has become a drop-in for everybody who wants to be seen.

“I remember someone going to A&E having injured their ankle, they were told ‘you really don’t need to be in A&E, go to your GP first’.

“Everyone seems to be sucked into A&E. Until we change that and ensure people are aware of other options, I think 24 hours in A&E will be the norm.

“It does vary though, there are pinch points, it’s worse at different times of the year, days of the week.”

Mr Andrew added: “People have come to expect to be in A&E 24 hours, that is really sad. We need to change that expectation and prevent it being normalised.

“We do an awful lot of work that people perhaps don’t see, it is a working problem, but ED is the door that is always open.

“I have anecdotal stories coming out of my ears. I know of two this weekend. Two patients turned up in A&E, one had itchy skin for three weeks…the second had a lump on his head for several months, it had gone a little bit red.

“There’s something there about public expectation, something around education, there are pharmacy facilities open these days and many things in the community to prevent these things happening.

“We recognise no one wants to normalise being in A&E for 24 hours.

“As an ex-paramedic it’s disgusting to see ambulances sitting outside the front. I see former colleagues sitting there and feel really uncomfortable.

“I would point out, our ambulance handover performance has increased significantly.”

He added: “The Welsh Government is pushing us towards an increase in community services, what we call a ‘shift left’ in health. It feels like the right thing to do but that’s a real challenge when you have a £43m deficit.”

Cllr Morris also vented frustration over a lack of a solution to car parking issues at Ysbyty Gwynedd.

Cllr Morris said: “In terms of waiting for a strategy paper on parking sometimes you just need a simple answer; find a field and Tarmac over it. There are plenty of fields around Ysbyty Gwynedd.”

Mr Edwards replied: “We are trying to address this, we have to do something so that decisions are taken sooner.

“If you know the owner of the field you are talking about then please let me know.

“Creating more parking spaces isn’t always the answer. If you open a new bypass there will be more traffic on the road…we have to look at it from a much wider perspective.”

Mr Edwards also spoke about staffing issues, saying: “Regarding staffing and senior leadership team, it does seem like we have taken a step back.

“Audit Wales said there was a stability within the health board, certainly in terms of board membership and independent members, now there are significant gaps we need to fill.

“A supplementary question might be ‘why are those gaps there?’ There are a number of reasons.

“Some come to the health board, keen to work for a short time but also keen to move on to something else.

“I’ve been surprised to see so many people working for the health service in some of the highest roles who work for a short period.”

Others, he said, had “geographic reasons for moving”.

He added: “Some people feel, you know, that they are seeing the name of the health board in the headlines in the Daily Post or a story from the government on a daily basis.

“They think ‘why should I stick around to deal with that’. They feel it affects their professional status.”

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