Councillor has 'never seen such compassion' after North East Ambulance Service crew attends call in his ward

Speaking to NEAS assistant director of communications and engagement Mark Cotton at a council health and wellbeing overview and scrutiny meeting on Tuesday, Labour councillor Les Bowman complimented the team.

He said: “A few weeks ago there was concern about an elderly resident. People called an ambulance and I just wanted to compliment you on the care that old man received.

“It was absolutely astonishing. I have never seen such compassion, I have never seen such understanding, I have never seen such professionalism on that day.

“That old man was in a restful mind when he walked onto the ambulance and went off to hospital to receive treatment. I must compliment the ambulance service on that.”

Mr Cotton had delivered the ambulance service’s quality report, which revealed that NEAS has the best response times in the country.

The trust attended 313,913 incidents in 2022/23, taking 215,727 people to hospital.

Mr Cotton said: “We have been an incredibly busy organisation as always. We are the fastest responding ambulance services for category one calls, those deemed to be life-threatening.

“We should get there within 15 minutes, and in 90% of cases we hit that target. Handover delays are also significantly lower than other parts of the country.”

Handover delays relate to the time it takes for an ambulance to drop off a patient at hospital before they are ready to go out on call again.

The issue has made national headlines over the winter, with queues of ambulances seen outside some hospitals struggling for bed space.

Cllr Georgina Hill, who represents Berwick East ward, said: “Regarding the ambulance service, the reassurance seems to be that the crisis is worse elsewhere than it is here.

“We need much more detail. Can we have a breakdown on geographical area, so we can really see where the problems are and the areas which are having a longer response time?

“I get stories where plenty of ambulances come quickly, but you do get stories of over an hour. If it happens once, it is very serious.”

Mr Cotton said he would take the comments back to the organisation, but added that the report was not commissioned to breakdown data to geographical locations.