Chamber and committees

This is one of a number of issues currently being considered by the National Infertility Group.

The National Infertility Group considered the interim report from Infertility Network Scotland at its last meeting. The group will deliver its first report to ministers by the end of 2010.

This is one of a number of issues currently being considered by the National Infertility Group.

The National Infertility Group met on 21 September 2010.

This information is currently being collected and will be analysed by the National Infertility Group at a future meeting.

In line with contingency planning arrangements that are in place for the Scottish Ambulance Service, both the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and the North West Ambulance Service in England assisted in dealing with calls from Scotland on 21 July 2010.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that during the times of 01:05 to 15:45, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service dealt with 121 calls and the North West Ambulance Service dealt with 28 calls, less than 10% of the incidents dealt with by the ambulance service that day. Of these, some calls were found to be duplicates, therefore 125 patients had their details taken and then passed back to Scotland for an ambulance to be dispatched.

The Scottish Ambulance Service experienced disruption in their normal call handling operations on 21 July and there was a period of 50 minutes when all three Emergency Medical Dispatch Centres (EMDCs) were out of operation while a controlled close down and restart was carried out.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that their normal call handling operations were impacted as follows:

Inverness EMDC between 01:05 and 14:55.

Cardonald EMDC between 09:56 and 14:00.

Norseman EMDC between 09:42 and 15:30.

This means that there was a period of just over four hours when all three centres were experiencing difficulty. The controlled close down and restart took place between 13:10 and 14:00.

During the overall period some calls continued to be answered by the Scottish EMDCs in the usual way, some were routed by BT to mobile telephones in the three Scottish EMDCs and, where necessary, some were routed to be answered by the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service or the North West Ambulance Service. These contingency arrangements are part of the established resilience procedures that are in place to deal with a scenario such as the one experienced on 21 July.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has advised that during the times of 01:05 to 15:45, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service dealt with 121 calls and the North West Ambulance Service dealt with 28 calls, less than 10% of the incidents dealt with by the ambulance service that day. Of these, some calls were found to be duplicates, therefore 125 patients had their details taken and then passed back to Scotland for an ambulance to be dispatched.

BT were instructed to undertake a full review of resilience of the system and the findings of that will be factored into future contingency arrangements.

The Scottish Ambulance Service have been undertaking a thorough investigation in to the incident on 21 July 2010. This has included reviewing the sequence of events on the day, considering how the contingency arrangements worked, understanding what the impact was on service delivery and, most importantly, auditing the clinical outcomes for patients. The ambulance service have been focussing on learning lessons and identifying actions that need to be taken forward by the service and others.

The contingency arrangements were activated, the fault was resolved quickly, and BT has confirmed that all 999 calls were answered. None of the information available to the Scottish Government indicated that it was necessary to make an announcement. However, a full investigation into the events of 21 July 2010 is being conducted and a report will be published.

It is not the case that no ambulance control room was operating on 21 July 2010. The Scottish Ambulance Service experienced disruption in their normal call handling operations on 21 July and there was a period of 50 minutes when all three Emergency Medical Dispatch Centres (EMDCs) were out of operation while a controlled close down and restart was carried out.

The Scottish Ambulance Service swiftly put in place contingency plans to support 999 calls while the operation of the EMDCs was compromised. However, any compromise of the call handling operations of the Scottish Ambulance Service is of concern and the Scottish Ambulance Service therefore instructed BT to undertake a full review of the resilience of the telephony system.

The Scottish Ambulance Service have been undertaking a thorough investigation in to the incident on 21 July. This has included reviewing the sequence of events on the day, considering how the contingency arrangements worked, understanding what the impact was on service delivery and, most importantly, auditing the clinical outcomes for patients. The ambulance service have been focussing on learning lessons and identifying actions that need to be taken forward by the service and others.

As part of their investigation, the Scottish Ambulance Service have undertaken a clinical audit that has reviewed every 999 call on the day, as well as all of those patients for whom an ambulance was requested within one hour or two hours by their GP, with particular focus on the 125 patients who were routed outside of Scotland for their calls to be answered. Dr George Crooks, Medical Director of the Scottish Ambulance Service, has informed me that the clinical case mix and outcomes achieved on 21 July reflected those experienced when the service is working as normal and that there were no adverse outcomes attributable to the delays associated with the buddy system.