Statistical press notice: Ambulance Quality Indicators – monthly update for England
Ambulance Systems Indicators and Ambulance Clinical Outcomes data were released today
Ambulance Systems Indicators for period January 2012 and Ambulance Clinical Outcomes for period October 2011
The following statistics were released today by the Department of Health:
Ambulance System Indicators; Category A 8 minute response time, category A 19 minute response time, call abandonment rate, re-contact rate following discharge of care, time to answer call, time to treatment, ambulance calls closed with telephone advice or managed without transport to A&E, ambulance emergency journeys; for period January 2012.
Ambulance Clinical Outcomes; Outcome from cardiac arrest - return of spontaneous circulation, outcome from acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), outcome from stroke for ambulance patients, outcome from cardiac arrest - survival to discharge; for period October 2011.
Main Findings - System Indicators for January 2012
• The proportion of Category A calls resulting in an emergency response arriving within 8 minutes was 77.9% nationally, ranging from 75.7% to 79.1% across different ambulance trusts. The performance in January, 77.9%, is better than the year-to-date position (April - January) of 76.3% on emergency responses within 8 minutes. Performance has also improved when compared to the same period in the previous year - in January 2011 performance was 75.4%. Please note, however, that data for January 2011 was collected under a different collection - the Weekly Situation Reports - from which a monthly figure is calculated. All Trusts achieved the standard for 75% of Category A calls to receive an emergency response within 8 minutes.
• The proportion of Category A calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene within 19 minutes was 97.0%, ranging from 92.6% to 99.3%. Two Trusts; East Midlands Ambulance Service and East of England Ambulance Service failed to achieve the standard for 95% of Category A calls to receive an ambulance vehicle capable of transporting the patient within 19 minutes of the request for transport being made. The year to date position (April-January) is that 96.9% of Category A calls resulted in an ambulance arriving at the scene within 19 minutes so this month’s performance, 97.0%, is better than the year-to-date value.
• The proportion of calls abandoned by the caller before the call was answered by the ambulance service was 1.2%, which is a stable position when compared to the year-to-date (April - January) value of 1.2%.
• The re-contact rate following discharge of care has two components:
- Re-contact following discharge of care by telephone, where 14.0% of such calls resulted in the patient re-contacting the Ambulance Service within 24 hours. This is an improvement over the year-to-date position (April - January) of 14.4%.
- Where the discharge of care was from face-to-face treatment by the ambulance service at the scene, 5.6% of such patients re-contacted the Ambulance Service within 24 hours, which is a better performance than the year-to-date figure (April-January) of 5.9%. The range this month was 7.9% down to 2.0%.
• There is a separate element on those re-contacting the Ambulance Service and that deals with those for whom there is a locally agreed frequent caller procedure in place. Nationally, 1.0% of patients for whom a frequent caller handling procedure is in place re-contacted the ambulance service within the month; however, frequent caller procedures are locally determined and protocols will vary across ambulance services. Six Trusts were not able to identify frequent callers. For those Trusts that were able to supply both a numerator and denominator, the corresponding figure was 2.1%.
• Where ambulance calls were closed with telephone advice or managed without transport to A&E then 5.5% of emergency calls that received a telephone or face-to-face response were resolved by telephone advice, which is an improvement against the year-to-date figure (April-January) of 4.9%. The range across all trusts was 3.0% to 7.9%.
• Of those emergency calls that received a face-to-face response, 33.9% were either discharged at the scene, transferred to a destination other than a Type 1 or Type 2 A&E, or were referred to an alternative care pathway. This month’s performance is better than the year-to-date performance (April-January) of 33.7%. This month’s performance ranged from 18.8% to 48.2%.
• Data on the median, 95th and 99th percentiles were collected, at Ambulance Trust level, for both Time to Answer Calls and Time to Treatment. However, it is not possible to produce a national median/95th/99th percentile.
• For the time to answer a call, the median ranged from less than a second to 3 seconds. The 95th percentile ranged from 1 to 47 seconds and the 99th percentile had a range of 11 to 98 seconds.
• The median time to treatment ranged from 4.8 minutes to 6.3 minutes, the 95th percentile ranged from 11.7 to 19.6 minutes and the 99th percentile had a range of 17.8 to 32.5 minutes.
• In January 2012 there were 407,343 emergency journeys, which is an average of 13,140 per day. This is less than in January 2011 when there was an average of 13,386 per day. Please note, however, that data for January 2011 was collected under a different collection - the Weekly Situation Reports - from which a daily figure has been calculated.
Main Findings - Clinical Outcomes for October 2011
This return runs with a 3-month lag on the Systems Indicators, as this time is required in order for those patients transported by ambulance to have their outcomes resolved.
• The Return of Spontaneous Circulation (ROSC) is calculated for two patient groups: The overall rate measures the overall effectiveness of the urgent and emergency care system in managing care for all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests; the rate for the Utstein comparator group provides a more comparable and specific measure of the management of cardiac arrests for the subset of patients where timely and effective emergency care can particularly improve survival (e.g. 999 calls where the arrest was not witnessed and the patient may have gone into arrest several hours before the 999 call are included in the figures for all patients, but are excluded from the Utstein comparator group figure).
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Of those patients who had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, 25.0% had ROSC on arrival at hospital where resuscitation was commenced or continued by ambulance personnel. This is an improvement in performance when compared to the year-to-date (April-October) figure of 23.1%. Performance ranged from 13.8% to 38.9% across all ambulance trusts.
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For those patients who had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest that was witnessed, and where the patient had a heart rhythm that was suitable for defibrillation (i.e. the Utstein comparator group), 44.6% had ROSC on arrival at hospital where resuscitation was commenced or continued by ambulance personnel. Again, this was an improvement compared to the year-to-date (April-October) figure where performance was 44.3%. On mainland England performance ranged from 20.0% to 68.8%.
• As with the Return of Spontaneous Circulation, survival to discharge following cardiac arrest is reported separately for all patients, and for the subset of patients in the Utstein comparator group.
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Of those who suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, where ambulance staff commenced/continued resuscitation, 7.5% were discharged from hospital alive. This is an improvement compared to the year-to-date (April-October) figure of 6.9%. Performance for all Trusts ranged from 3.3% to 18.2%. South Central Ambulance Service was unable to return data for this element of the collection.
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For those patients who had an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest that was witnessed, and where the patient had a heart rhythm that was suitable for defibrillation and resuscitation was commenced or continued by ambulance personnel, 21.7% were discharged from hospital alive, compared to 22.4% from April-October, a deterioration in performance. This indicator is characterised by small numbers. Performance percentage figures derived from these figures are likely to be subject to large variation, within and across months. This month performance, on mainland England, ranged from 11.1% to 31.8%. On the Isle of Wight only one patient fitted this category and they were discharged alive. South Central Ambulance Service was unable to return data for this element of the collection.
• Of those patients with an initial diagnosis of ‘definite myocardial infarction’ receiving thrombolysis where the first diagnostic ECG was performed by ambulance personnel, 33.3% received the thrombolysis within 60 minutes of the call being connected to the ambulance service. The year-to-date figure from April-October is 54.3% so there has been a deterioration in performance. As with the previous indicator, very small numbers were returned across those Trusts that are reporting data for this line. Six Trusts returned zero returns for this element. Of those six, four Trusts do not return this data and have confirmed that this indicator is not applicable to them, as their clinical pathway does not include thrombolysis, only PPCI. These trusts are Great Western, South Central, North East and East of England.
• Those patients for whom a primary angioplasty occurred within 150 minutes of the call being connected to the ambulance service following the first diagnostic ECG being carried out by ambulance personnel, represented 91.4% of all such patients that fulfilled this criteria, a better performance than 89.4% from April-October 2011. Performance, for all Trusts, ranged from 100% to 78.6%.
• 74.0% of patients with a pre-hospital diagnosis of suspected ST-elevation myocardial infarction received the appropriate care bundle. This is an improvement on the year-to-date figure from April-October where 72.9% received the appropriate bundle. Performance ranged from 98.0% to 50.0%.
• 68.4% of FAST positive patients, who were assessed face to face, arrived at a hyperacute stroke centre within 60 minutes of the call being connected to the ambulance service. Performance ranged from 88.2% to 40.0%. This is an improvement compared to April-October 2011 where performance for this indicator was 66.1%.
• Of the suspected stroke patients assessed face to face, 94.2% received an appropriate care bundle, showing a better performance than the 92.9% between April and October 2011. Performance ranged from 97.0% to 88.4%.
Statistical Notes
- Data Collection
• The Ambulance Quality Indicators data are collected from the 12 Ambulance Trusts in England each month. The collection is divided into two parts - the ‘System Indicators’, which relate to the initial 999 call and which runs three months ahead of the ‘Clinical Outcomes’. The Clinical Outcomes data relates to the outcomes of those patients transported by ambulance - the three month lag is required in order for those outcomes to be resolved.
• With the exception of the 8-minute response time standard and the 19-minute transportation standard for Category A (immediately life-threatening) calls, no thresholds to denote “poor” care have been set for these indicators. Instead, the data on the indicators will be used to reduce variation in performance across trusts (where clinically appropriate) and drive continuous improvement in patient outcomes over time.
- Clinical Dashboards
In line with recommendations from the National Ambulance Director and the National Clinical Director for Urgent and Emergency Care, the information for the indicators will also be published in clinical dashboards that will use statistical process control to indicate whether these fluctuations in performance are statistically significant, or whether they merely represent the variation in performance that is unavoidable even when a health system is performing well. These statistical process control measures will take at least seven months worth of data to be reliable, but they will help ensure that performance changes over time are seen in the proper clinical context. Dashboards containing data for April - December 2011 have already been published on several ambulance trust websites.
- Data Quality
We are continuing to work with all the Trusts involved in this return to further improve data quality.
- Revisions
• Revisions to previous month’s data are made in line with the Department of Health’s revisions protocol for performance monitoring data. Future revisions will be made on a six-monthly cycle. The revisions protocol can be found on the Department of Health website.
• Ambulance Systems Indicators data for April and May 2011 have been revised.
- Related Statistics
• The total number of category A and category B calls made to ambulance trusts in England, and of these how many were responded to within 8 minutes (category A) or 19 minutes (category B), and the number of urgent and emergency journeys, were previously collected by the Weekly Situation Reports collection. The collection also included data on instances of delayed handover to A&E staff. Data covering the period 08/11/2010 to 29/05/2011 can be found on the Department of Health website.
• Performance statistics on ambulance services in other countries of the UK can be found via the following links:
Welsh Government website
Scottish Ambulance Service website
Northern Ireland Ambulance Service and Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Trust information
Additional Information
Full data tables for all Ambulance Trusts are available via the Department of Health website.
For press enquiries, please contact the DH press office: Tel: 020 7210 5221
The Government Statistical Service (GSS) statistician responsible for producing these data is:
Stuart Knight
Knowledge and Intelligence
Department of Health
Room 4E40, Quarry House, Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS2 7UE
E-mail: Unify2@dh.gsi.gov.uk