Welsh Ambulance Service introduces new ‘purple’ category for highest-priority emergency, in bid to drive up survival rates
Today (July 1), the Welsh Ambulance Service is introducing a new category in the way it registers and responds to emergency 999 calls. There’s already a red category for life-threatening emergencies, those at risk of cardiac or respiratory arrest, including illnesses and trauma.
Photo by Robby McCullough / Unsplash
But now a new purple category is being added, for people suffering from an out-of-hospital cardiac or respiratory arrest. Purple and red category calls will be priorities, with ambulances expected to respond to them within an average of 6-8 minutes.
The aim of this change is to improve survival rates from such incidents – which in Wales are currently less than 5%. It is being made following a recommendation from the Senedd’s Health and Social Care Committee, which concluded that the current response targets are not fit for purpose. The new approach places more focus on outcomes than response times.
The success of the change will be measured by the percentage of people in the purple category who have a heartbeat restored after a cardiac arrest, until they arrive at hospital.
Any 999 calls not categorised purple or red will go through rapid clinical screening, taking account of a person’s symptoms and where the incident occurred, ensuring every person receives a tailored response to their needs.
As well as the new category being introduced, action is also being taken to improve ambulance handover at hospitals to support ambulance capacity – the aim to ensure that patient handover to hospitals takes a maximum of 45 minutes.
What’s more, the Welsh Ambulance Service is hosting the NHS Wales Save a Life Cymru programme to promote CPR awareness and improve accessibility of defibrillators across the community. There are currently more than 8,500 registered public access defibrillators across Wales. The Welsh Government are providing £500,000 for an additional 500 automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in community locations.
Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, says: ‘We’re taking decisive action to save more lives. Until now, cardiac arrests have been categorised in the same way as less critical problems like breathing difficulties. This new approach ensures ambulance teams prioritise people with the most urgent needs. This targeted clinical response, combined with wider access to defibrillators in the community and improvements to hospital handovers, represents our commitment to improving survival rates.’
Jason Killens, Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, adds: ‘Since 1974, the ambulance service has been measured by the time it takes to reach emergency calls. The ambulance service of today provides much more sophisticated care, so shifting the focus to how many people survive a life-or-death emergency because of our interventions, rather than how many minutes it takes us to arrive, is an important step to reflect that.’
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