Albert James Hand

The MATTERS OF CONCERN are as follows: (1) That a patient who has suffered a head injury has to wait for over one and a half hours to be conveyed to hospital (2) That there are insufficient ambulance crews in the Luton and Bedfordshire area to meet the emergency needs of the community. (3) That the Protocols in place for dealing with emergency calls are putting patients at risk and may result in future deaths. 6 ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN In my opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you, as the Chief Executive of the East of England Ambulance Service, have the power to take such action. 7 YOUR RESPONSE You are under a duty to respond to this Report within 56 days of the date of this Report, namely by the 7th March 2014; I, the Coroner, may extend the period. Your response must contain details of action taken, or proposed to be taken, setting out the timetable for action. Otherwise you must explain why no action is proposed. 8 COPIES and PUBLICATION I have sent a copy of my Report to: The Chief Coroner and to the following Interested Person(s): I have also sent it to Luton MP’s who may find it useful or of interest - Mr Gavin Shuker and Mr Kelvin Hopkins I am also under a duty to send the Chief Coroner a copy of your response. The Chief Coroner may publish, either or both, in a complete, redacted or summary form. He may also send a copy of this Report to any person who he believes may find it useful or of interest. You may make representations to me, the Coroner, at the time of your response, about the release or the publication of your response by the Chief Coroner. 9 Dated this 9th day of January 2014 Tom OSBORNE Senior Coroner Bedfordshire & Luton