Agenda item - South East Coast Ambulance Trust Update on Red 3 Triage Scheme

Report of the Head of Law on the South East Coast Ambulance Trust (SECAMb) ‘Red 3’ triage scheme (copy attached).

8.1       This item was introduced by Geraint Davies, SECAmb Acting Chief Executive; Terry Parkin, Non-Executive Director; Ben Banfield, Customer Account Manager (Sussex); and Tim Fellows, Operating Unit Manager for Brighton & Hove.

8.2       The committee was told that the Red 3 triage scheme was well-intentioned, but was poorly executed, particularly in terms of governance processes. Lessons have been learnt from this: there have been significant changes at the top of the organisation; and key improvement actions are captured in the Joint Recovery Plan. These include developing a truly unitary Board, making the organisation more transparent, and ensuring that staff concerns are properly addressed. The impact review on the triage scheme is due to be published in June 2016, although to date no patient harm has been identified.

8.3       The Chair alerted members to an error in the cover report for this item (prepared by HOSC support officers): at 3:1 the triage scheme is described as adding an additional 10 minutes to call target times. This is inaccurate and should read “up to an additional 10 minutes.” In fact, the average additional wait occasioned by the triage scheme was only 40 seconds.

8.4       In response to questions from Cllr Marsh about how stakeholders could be confident that similar mistakes would not be made again, Mr Parkin told members that fundamental changes had been made to SECAmb’s governance system making it impossible for a major initiative to be undertaken without appropriate governance and risk oversight.

8.5       RESOLVED – that the information provided by SECAmb be noted and a further update provided once the clinical impact review is published (i.e. at the July 2016 HOSC meeting).