In life-threatening or medical emergency situations, NHS patients rely on ambulance crews, paramedics and other first responders to provide safe, urgent, and often critical, emergency care.
A timely, effective response to many medical emergencies can prevent death or severe, long-term injury. The outcome to life and death health conditions often depends on how quickly the patient’s condition was recognised and treated. Ambulance crews and paramedics are usually the first medically trained professionals to see the critically ill patient whose outcome may (wholly or partly) depend on their standard of care.
Severe injury or significant worsening of the patient’s condition can be caused by negligent treatment even before the patient leaves home or arrives at hospital. Each stage of the patient’s journey must be handled correctly, from NHS 111’s advice, call handling and triage (prioritising of the patient’s needs), the ambulance service response and/or paramedic care, to the patient’s care in transit and handover at hospital.
Claims commonly arise from misdiagnosis or negligent management of life-threatening or emergency conditions, such as head or spinal injuries, heart attacks and strokes, severe bleeding, meningitis or sepsis, asthma attacks, anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reactions. Further injury may be caused by incorrect treatment or medication, or significant delays in responding.
In the same way that other areas of the NHS, such as accident and emergency (A&E), hospital specialist departments and GPs have a responsibility to their patients, NHS 111 and ambulance services must compensate patients who are severely injured by their negligent care. This includes where the mistakes are the result of lack of training, staff or resources. The NHS is responsible for ensuring that ambulance services have the correct staff and equipment to respond to emergencies on time and to provide the correct standard of care.
