Ambulance Staff May Get Right To Refuse Patients

Paramedics could be given the right to refuse to pick up patients who call ambulances for minor problems, under plans announced by the health minister Andy Burnham.

The minister, who has spent recent months shadowing NHS staff, was particularly struck by the frustration of a paramedic who complained that he had been “flying around South London on a blue light, putting the public at risk, just to get to a paper cut”.

Ambulance staff also told of how the public complained that they had “paid their taxes” when paramedics questioned if an ambulance was really necessary.

Now Mr Burnham is looking at giving paramedics and other frontline ambulance staff extra powers to refuse patients ambulances – sometimes dubbed by health staff “blue light taxis”.

In proposals sent to the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, but which he will address over the next couple of months, he asks: “Should paramedics be expected to carry all patients from 999 calls to A&E, or should they have the ability to refuse because of the minor nature of the condition? We need to … ensure that staff are being fully supported to make the decision to leave patients at home if they feel the patient doesn’t need to go to A&E.”

The minister told the Guardian: “This was a source of real frustration for everyone in A&E because it was another person they had to see within their four-hour target.” He believes the measure could mean up to a million fewer patients being taken to A&E. Targets had driven up standards, he said, but in a era of patients having increased choice “the target era is going to come to an end”.