March 28, 2013 10.06 am
This story is over 111 months old
‘No confidence vote’ for ambulance improved response times pledge
Not convinced: Lincolnshire people deserve, but are not receiving, the best response times from their ambulance service, the county’s health committee chair argues.
Lincolnshire people deserve, but are not receiving, the best response times from their ambulance service.
Over the last four years, we have continually heard how EMAS are not reaching their regional targets, and their performance for Lincolnshire, with its unique rural issues, is even worse.
EMAS have not met their response time targets for the last 21 months in Lincolnshire, and this isn’t good enough. Staff work very hard, but something needs to be done to improve the service.
Voluntary organisations in Lincolnshire, such as LIVES and other emergency services, make a valuable contribution to response times but it is not acceptable for them to prop up the ambulance service.
Without these organisations, the performance of EMAS would be even worse – not only do taxpayers end up paying twice, but every area in the East Midlands should receive the same level of service.
The public response to the initial changes put forward raised serious concerns, and the Health Scrutiny Committee expressed our own worries, including that they did not show how performance would be improved.
In fact, we were not convinced they would improve.
EMAS have now approved new proposals that are significantly different and, despite the goalposts changing and new options being introduced at the eleventh hour, EMAS plans still fail to explain how they will start meeting response time targets for our county.
The Health Scrutiny Committee for Lincolnshire has now written to the Secretary of State to review the EMAS consultation. We believe the consultation is flawed: key parties were not invited to comment; new options not consulted on; and both public and stakeholder events were poorly attended.
The Committee has no confidence that the EMAS pledge of ‘Being the Best’ will happen in Lincolnshire without considerable extra financing, and our ultimate goal is to return a dedicated ambulance service to the county.
Councillor Christine Talbot is the Chairman of the Health Scrutiny Committee for Lincolnshire and Conservative County Council representative for Bracebridge Heath and Waddington.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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