May 2009 - Lives are being lost warn accident docs
This is the claim of BASICS Hampshire who provides volunteer doctors to attend critical accidents and incidents while off-duty.
Now, the Hampshire branch is lobbying the Government and the South Central Health Authority to provide cash to pay for doctors who can be available to treat seriously ill or-injured people at incidents around-the-clock. Currently, only London benefits from such a service.
Dr Louisa Chan, an accident and emergency doctor at Basingstoke hospital, is one of 16 BASICS Hampshire doctors.
She said: “Taking an emergency doctor’s skills to people as early as possible means they have a better chance of surviving on the way to hospital and recovering well.
“There are around 600 times a year that we get called and can’t respond, because we are working. This is why we believe it is essential that somehow what we do is incorporated into the NHS.”
(From left) BASICS Hampshire doctors Dr John O'Neill, Dr Louisa Chan and Dr Howard Simpson
BASICS Hampshire members are now in talks with the strategic health authority to discuss funding a 24-hour doctor response unit.
"Not all the incidents that BASICS - British Association for Immediate Care - members respond to are necessarily critical", Dr Chan said. But she added: “Some will be – and we know a 24/7 service saves lives.”
BASICS Hampshire will continue to campaign, she said, and the doctors are hopeful that a new government-appointed “trauma czar” will consider funding.
In March, awareness of the campaign received a boost with Liberal Democrat peer Lucius Cary, the 15th Viscount Falkland, asking the Government why the NHS does not fund doctor care before hospital.
He told the house that in Hampshire, there is a 40 per cent mortality rate because of delays in getting accident victims to hospital.
He said: “People who are severely injured need expert attention very quickly.”