Greens agree national standards for ambulances needed

The Green Party has agreed with the findings of Wellington coroner Garry Evans that national standards for ambulance services are urgently needed.

Mr Evans made the call after the death of a patient who was assessed as having a tummy bug.

Melfyn Wynne-Williams was found dead in his suburban Berhampore home on December 28, 2006, a day after calling Wellington Free Ambulance complaining of abdominal pain. He died from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.

At the inquest into his death, Mr Wynne-Williams' wife said she was on holiday on December 27, but had spoken to her husband that day when he told her he had called the ambulance because he was suffering severe abdominal pain and had been vomiting.

The two paramedics had just left the house having told Mr Wynne-Williams about the "current virus going around" and advising him to rest and take panadol.

The ambulance report form filed from that visit showed that no vital signs had been taken from Mr Wynne-Williams and recorded.

After reviewing the case and two others like it, Wellington Free Ambulance put in place more robust guidelines and policies paramedics are to follow when deciding whether or not to leave a patient at the scene.

Operations manager Rob Jenkins told the inquest he saw the need for a national body to establish and maintain paramedical standards.

Parliament's health select committee is carrying out an inquiry into the provision of ambulance services.

Mr Evans has written to Health Minister David Cunliffe urging the Government give "early consideration" to the establishment of national standards for paramedics.

Green health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley, who helped get the select committee inquiry, said today it was extraordinary that there were no national clinical standards governing the provision of ambulance services.

"This means that the clinical care New Zealanders receive varies according to where they live and this is completely unacceptable," she said.

Ambulance officers were not regulated as a profession either and there was no national clinical governance committee and this must change, she said.

She agreed with Mr Evans that there needed to be national clinical standards for New Zealand's ambulance service.