Ambulance no-shows fail disabled patient

A disabled patient has missed seven appointments in nine months because his pre-booked ambulance transport has failed to turn up.

Roger Ellis, 87, relies on East Midlands Ambulance Service's (EMAS) patient transfer service to get him to hospital appointments due to a neurological condition that affects his mobility.

He has used transfer services for 15 years, but has recently been unable to get to any of his consultations.

Joy Weldin, divisional director for non-emergency patient transport service at EMAS, said it had not delivered the "high standard of service we hold ourselves to".

Mr Ellis said: "Apart from making me exceedingly angry, it upsets all the hospital staff as well because they get thrown into chaos.

"We can't see the consultant.

"If we miss a consultation, they're entitled to strike us off and we have to get re-referred. It does cause quite considerable problems."

Mr Ellis's son Stephen said each time an appointment had been missed, the family had raised a complaint through PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service).

"On the four or five apology letters my dad's received, they have been apologetic. They have accepted blame," he said.

In the family's most recent letter of apology, seen by BBC Look North, EMAS said it had classed Mr Ellis as a "priority patient".

However, since the letter was received, Stephen said there had been three further occasions where an ambulance had not been sent.

"So, it's a false promise," he said.

Mr Ellis has Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) which leads to progressive nerve damage due to the immune system attacking the myelin sheath, the protective covering of nerves.

It affects his mobility, he requires round the clock care and is unable to travel by car. He needs regular CT scans and consultations.

Mr Ellis's transport is booked two weeks in advance and he is asked to be ready two hours before each appointment.

"They just say a vehicle hasn't been allocated. They don't say why," Mr Ellis said.

"One of the last calls we had was that they couldn't find a vehicle.

"He came back to us eventually and said, 'We've found a vehicle but we can't find a crew for it now.'"

Stephen said he hoped highlighting his father's experience would "trigger somebody to do something about it and provide the service that they're being paid to provide".

EMAS said it faced an "incredibly high" level of demand for its service, providing over 390,000 patient journeys across the East Midlands last year, with each one "requiring careful planning and coordination".

Ms Weldin said: "I would like to say how very sorry I am for the service provided to Mr Ellis. I can only apologise and say that we are always working hard to improve."

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