Recurring concern

Failure to provide timely emergency hospital conveyance

First to latest report 9 Jan 2014 — 5 Jun 2026

Reports that mention this concern
11
Times this concern has been raised
12
Stated actions linked to this concern
18

What this concern includes

Includes failures in arranging, authorising or providing timely emergency conveyance to hospital when a patient's condition requires urgent hospital assessment or treatment, including delays after the need for conveyance is identified and inappropriate non-emergency conveyance conditions.

What is not included
  • Excludes delays in ambulance attendance, dispatch or travel before the conveyance decision or vehicle arrival; those belong to ambulance-response concerns.
  • Excludes hospital admission, ambulance-to-hospital handover and treatment delays after the patient has arrived at hospital.
  • Excludes routine outpatient or non-urgent patient transport.
  • Excludes generic clinical-assessment or diagnosis failures unless they directly result in delayed or inappropriate emergency hospital conveyance.
  • Excludes failures of vehicle equipment, patient positioning or restraint unless they directly make the emergency hospital conveyance itself unsafe.

Reports and published responses 11 reports

See individual reports that have raised this concern, and the actions taken in response

  1. Bedfordshire and Luton

    AI-generated summary

    Albert James HAND · Prevention of Future Deaths report

    This summary was generated using AI from the published report. Please read the original report for the complete account.

    Report summary

    Albert James Hand suffered a fall at the Arndale Shopping Centre in Luton on 1 November 2013 and experienced a delay of almost one and a half hours before arriving at hospital, during which his Glasgow Coma Scale fell from 11 to 7. The concerns identified were delays in conveying patients with head injuries, insufficient ambulance crews in the Luton and Bedfordshire area, and emergency-call protocols that may put patients at risk and result in future deaths.

    Read the report on judiciary.uk

    Source evidence

    How this individual concern was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Delays in conveying patients with head injuries to hospital

    Wider context from the report

    “(1) That a patient who has suffered a head injury has to wait for over one and a half hours to be conveyed to hospital ”

    Source location

    Albert James HAND · Prevention of Future Deaths report
    Page 2 · concerns

    Open source report

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Complete and share the Clinical Capacity Review identifying ambulance capacity shortfalls with Clinical Commissioning Groups.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “The Trust is absolutely committed to ensuring the Trust can consistently respond in a timely manner to all calls. The Trust commissioned a Clinical Capacity Review in 2013 which clearly showed that we did not have enough ambulances to enable the Trust to meet its call demand in certain areas. The findings of this review have been shared with the Clinical Commissioning Groups as additional funding is required.”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Recruit 400 student paramedics during 2014/15 to increase frontline staffing capacity.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “The Chief Executive Officer, Dr Anthony Marsh, joined the Trust on 1 January 2014. Dr Marsh has six key priorities for the organisation which include recruiting 400 more staff and providing more ambulances across the whole service. It is recognised that the Trust has had historic staffing problems due to a national shortage of paramedics to recruit to the vacancies, but the Trust has in place a significant recruitment drive which will enable more ambulances to be on the road over the next two years. As such, it is envisaged that patients will receive a timelier and more appropriate response to their 999 calls.”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Upskill emergency care assistants through staff development into technician, EMT and paramedic roles.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “To address the issue of response availability in general, the Trust is taking internal action against the six key priorities set. These are:”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Maximise clinical staffing on frontline vehicles.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “To address the issue of response availability in general, the Trust is taking internal action against the six key priorities set. These are:”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Reduce response cars and increase ambulance availability.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “To address the issue of response availability in general, the Trust is taking internal action against the six key priorities set. These are:”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent position was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Luton and Bedfordshire generally meet or exceed commissioned emergency-response targets, although vacancies and wider capacity constraints remain.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “Notwithstanding the priorities set out by Dr Marsh designed to increase resource availability across the whole area covered by the Trust, Luton and Bedfordshire consistently achieve their commissioned target and regularly exceed it across all Clinical Commissioning Groups within the county. The Trust is commissioned regionally to reach 75% of all its life-threatening emergencies within eight minutes. This is in line with the national targets set by the Department of Health. Clearly, due to the events described previously, the Trust was not able to meet this target on this particular occasion.”

    Source location

    2014-0010-Response-by-East-of-England-Ambulance-Service-NHS-Trust
    Page 3 · response
    Published 9 January 2014

    Open published response

Actions and positions describe what organisations say in published responses. Implementation is not independently verified.

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Data last updated 7 September 2026