New figures show an ambulance service’s response times are below the NHS standard as a pregnant mother-of-three says ‘any excuse is not good enough’ after the death of her husband.
Aaron Morris died on Friday, July 1 after his motorcycle was involved in a collision on Priestburn Close in Esh Winning in County Durham.
Mr Morris, who was a father-of-three and had recently learned his wife Sam is expecting twins, had been seriously injured but later passed away in hospital.
His wife Samantha Morris later criticised the response time as she believed her husband could have stood a chance against his injuries.
The 28-year-old was second on the scene following the collision but criticised the ambulance service’s response and says she believes his death may have been preventable if he had arrived at hospital sooner.
The latest data available shows that nearly 20,300 Category 2 incidents were logged by the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) in June, among 60,226 recorded in 2022-23 so far.
Read more: Wife says dying Esh Winning man had to wait an hour for ambulance
NHS standards require all ambulance trusts to respond to Category 2 calls in 18 minutes on average, and respond to 90 per cent within 40 minutes.
But NEAS said its response time in the case of Mr Morris was 50 minutes, while the average Category 2 response time during June was 44 minutes – more than twice the NHS standard.
That is up from 38 minutes 52 seconds the month before, but slightly lower than the 44 minutes 49 seconds recorded in April, when the ambulance service recorded its longest Category 2 response times since at least 2018-19.
In June, nine out of ten Category 2 calls were responded to in less than 1 hr 32 minutes, more than double the target time and up from 1 hr 20 minutes in May.
Responding to the figures, Mrs Morris said: “No matter what pressure services are under you expect when life is at imminent risk that no matter what, help will come even if it's just to do the basics like assess the situation for the correct services and to provide pain relief until transport arrives.
"I have never heard of a serious RTA after 50 minutes only getting one ambulance with one paramedic on.
Read more: Aaron Morris: Pay your respects to Esh Winning dad from County Durham here
“Any excuse is not good enough. They caused him to die in pain, because care didn't reach him in time to make him comfortable.”
The most recent yearly data shows NEAS responded to its highest levels of Category 2 incidents in at least five years during 2021-22. The figures show 242,672 such incidents were logged that year – up six per cent from 229,115 the year before and 8 per cent higher than in 2018-19.
Yet Mrs Morris remains aggrieved by the NEAS response to the incident. “A man who had such a full life and twin babies on the way should never have died in such horrific circumstances,” she said. “Instead of planning my children's names I am planning my husband's funeral at 28 years of age. What's their reaction to that?"
The North East Ambulance Service apologised to the family and have opened an internal review.
Read more: North East Ambulance Service to be subjected to NHS review
Dr Mathew Beattie, Medical Director for North East Ambulance Service said, “I would like to offer our sincere condolences to Mr Morris’s family. We were unable to reach Mr Morris as quickly as we would have liked. Our response was 50 minutes against a standard where nine out of ten responses should arrive within 40 minutes. For that we extend our apologies for the additional distress this must have caused in an already tragic situation.
“We are carrying out an internal review to see if there were any missed opportunities to respond quicker and this will be shared with the coroner. It has been widely reported that ambulance services across the country are struggling to meet response standards due to significant pressures across the NHS, but I can reassure you that we are working closely with our system partners to do everything possible to reach patients as quickly as we can.”
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