North East Ambulance Service Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Grahame Morris
Main Page: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)Department Debates - View all Grahame Morris's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
North East Ambulance Service
Grahame Morris Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Maria Caulfield
As I said to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), I am happy, as the Minister for patient safety, to meet to discuss any safety concerns and issues following the review of the cases that we have heard about today. As for wider ambulance reforms, the Minister for Health is here and he has heard that request.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Notwithstanding the appalling and heartbreaking cases that were highlighted in The Sunday Times and, indeed, The Northern Echo, including that of my constituent, Quinn Beadle, the Minister implied in her response that processes had been put in place to ensure that these things do not happen again. Does she want to take this opportunity to apologise to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Brocklehurst, for an incident that happened this year? Mrs Brocklehurst fell in her driveway, sustaining severe injuries, including five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, two crushed discs in her spine and other damage. It took the North East Ambulance Service three hours and 15 minutes to arrive. She experienced systemic failures throughout her experience, from a call handler advising her to place a bag of frozen peas on her broken back, to a trainee and two other paramedics wanting to lift her, before administering six syringes of morphine and placing her on a board without a neck brace. At the hospital, Mrs Brocklehurst was queued by the trust, in agony, for six hours before being treated. It is a disgrace, Minister.
Maria Caulfield
I am very sorry to hear that and I apologise to Mrs Brocklehurst. That is not an acceptable event to have happened, and I can only imagine the pain that she was going through. I am very happy to meet him and his constituent to discuss that further because, obviously, that wait should not have happened.