Nine out of 10 North East patients likely to recommend ambulance services

Patients of North East Ambulance’s emergency care, NHS111 and patient transport services are reporting high levels of satisfaction in a new report produced by Ipsos Mori.

The report compiles feedback from more than 6,500 people who used the service between August 2016 and October 2017, looking particularly at waiting times, treatment by staff, the transportation vehicle, outcomes of using NHS111, the likelihood of patients recommending the service and the key drivers of patient satisfaction.

Last year NEAS answered more than one million emergency 999 and NHS 111 calls and responded to almost 300,000 incidents that resulted in a patient being taken to hospital.  The ambulance service treated and discharged 24,000 patients with telephone advice and treated and discharged 92,141 patients at home. In the same year, scheduled care crews also completed 717,315 patient transport journeys.

The report highlights:

· Levels of patient experience for emergency care and patient transport remain high

· Most patients follow advice provided to them by 111, which in most cases helped to resolve or at least improve their health problem

· Waiting times play an important part of patient satisfaction

· More than 9 in every ten patients responding are either ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to recommend the emergency care or patient transport service

· 7 in every ten emergency care patients responding rate their experience with top marks ‘10 out of 10’, with the average score being 9.19.

· 88% of NHS111 patients responding are ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to advocate the service

Rated ‘Good’ by CQC in its last inspection, the Ipsos Mori report concludes: “Staff should be regarded as a source of pride. Patients across all three services rate

aspects of their care relating to the staff they interact with as being excellent.

Areas for possible future improvement are the time taken for emergency care users to be reached by ambulance.”

North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) is reassured by the report.

Chief operating officer at NEAS, Paul Liversidge, explains, “It has been a challenging time for all parts of the NHS recently but the findings in this report are testament to the care and dedication of the people that make up our workforce, who strive to make a difference, day in, day out, to people across the North East.  We continue to support them to deliver the best service we can and we are targeting those areas particularly highlighted by patients to make improvements.  Feedback from patients plays an important part of how we improve our service.”

The full report and breakdown between services is available to view here.

The service covers 3,200 square miles across the North East region, employing more than 2,600 staff and serving a population of 2.7 million people.  The Trust handles all NHS111 and 999 calls for the region, operates patient transport and ambulance response services, delivers training for communities and commercial audiences and provides medical support cover at events.