• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Huge wait for Ambulances after privatisation

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor Putting ambulance services into the private sector has descended into a “total shambles,” it has been revealed. An investigation by the NHS is going to be launched into a £63.5 million four year contract after patients have been left waiting for hours for their ambulance to arrive. Patients suffering with […]

Joe Mellor by Joe Mellor
2016-04-13 09:57
in News, Politics
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor

Putting ambulance services into the private sector has descended into a “total shambles,” it has been revealed.

An investigation by the NHS is going to be launched into a £63.5 million four year contract after patients have been left waiting for hours for their ambulance to arrive.

Patients suffering with cancer and kidney failure were among the hundreds who have missed appointments and treatments when their transport didn’t arrive or arrived far too late. Cancer patients have missed oncology appointments when they were not picked up at the right time.

It comes after NHS non-urgent transport services in Sussex were placed into private sector hands.

The essential transport is now ran by a private firm called Coperforma, leaving some elderly and frail patients waiting more than five hours for ambulances and then being stuck in hospital for huge periods because of the unreliable service.

Patients, relatives, NHS bodies and local MPs have severely criticised the service’s performance, and a trade union representing ambulance crews said it was an “absolute shambles”.

Coperforma replaced the NHS’s south East Coast ambulance service on 1st April, an apt day for it perhaps

The number of patients stuck at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton became some large that taxis were called to take them home.

RelatedPosts

Scraping the barrel: The consequences of the impending launch of deep-sea mining

It was left to German TV to show the true extent of strike action this week

‘Robin Hood’ energy workers in France are cutting power to the rich and giving it away to the poor

Tory MPs told to remove ‘Conservative’ from social bios

Staff there have had to stay until midnight to ensure kidney patients arriving hours after their scheduled start time have received vital dialysis.

Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups, which handed Coperforma the contract, said: “We recognise that the first few days of the new non-emergency Sussex patient transport service provided by Coperforma were not acceptable and apologise to all patients who were affected by this.

“A combination of initial technical hitches and problems with some of the patient data and journey information transferred from the previous service have created delays. These triggered a significant volume of calls to the call centres, which in turn created further issues; including some patients spending a regrettably long time waiting for transport.”

Gary Palmer, from the GMB trade union, which represents many of the Coperforma personnel involved, said: “Regularly patients are missing their appointments at hospital because they are just not being collected or are so late in being collected that they miss them. We know that hundreds and hundreds of patients have been affected. But given that Coperforma are carrying out 300,000 journeys a year, or about 1,000 every weekday, it could easily be 2,000 or 3,000. It’s been and still is an absolute shambles – chaos.”

The company said: “Coperforma apologises unreservedly to all patients who have and are still experiencing delays in patient transport services. We investigate all out-of-line situations and report back to any patients or NHS staff affected.

Content Protection by DMCA.com

Since you are here

Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.

Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.

Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.

If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.

To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.

The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.

The shop can be found here.

You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending

Elevenses: Exposing the Tories’ Deepfake Illegal Immigration Bill

Elevenses: Rishi’s Finest Hour

Elevenses: Fear and Loathing in the New Conservatives

More from TLE

Purple Lamborghini abandoned after spinning off road near Tottenham Hotspurs training ground

CBI sends Brexit warnings ahead of the annual conference

Read Dad’s Facebook message in praise of NHS who saved his young son’s life

Whitehall ‘furiously trying to manage expectations down’ on Brexit memo – Dodds

Five-year-old rescued from well after two days trapped inside

Stopping benefits for EU citizens ‘may lead to destitution and hunger’

Lucky Numbers and Horoscopes for today, 17 July 2021

Anti-GP violence ‘on the rise’ – as patient TRASHES waiting room

Nadine Dorries shoots herself and her party in foot in spat with Jeremy Hunt

Dalston’s has introduced a new Hard Seltzer range

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.