A PRIVATE ambulance company has called for “urgent” licensing and regulation of the ambulance services sector to ensure patient safety.
Lifeline Ambulance Service,one of nine companies providing emergency transport, is critical of the lack of national standards and said patients were being “put at risk” by an “unregulated environment”.
The Department of Health confirmed yesterday that there was no licensing system in place for private ambulance services.
“Contracts are being awarded to private ambulance companies based on cheapest cost, rather than on adhering to safety standards,” David Hall, Lifeline’s managing director, told The Irish Times. He stressed that the HSE did require adherence to its own standards when hiring private ambulances. However, health insurance companies and event organisers also hired ambulances on a very regular basis, he pointed out.
“We have ISO accreditation, but there is no requirement to meet a gold standard,” Mr Hall said. “One could set up an ambulance company in the morning with no paramedics and limited equipment,” he added.
Patients tended to regard ambulance services as akin to airlines – as in meeting regulations, he said, but “the reality is quite different”.
Specific standards should cover infection control and hygiene standards and policies, and a requirement that private ambulance staff be enrolled on a State register of practitioners, he said.
He also said ambulance staff should meet standardised qualifications, should be Garda vetted, and should be trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and patient handling, and that types and suitability of vehicles should be checked, along with insurance cover and driving standards.
Mr Hall, a State-registered paramedic, has 20 years of experience in working in ambulances and his company employs 96 people, has a fleet of 55 vehicles and transports more than 28,000 patients annually.
He was appointed by Minister for Health Mary Harney to the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) in 2000 and completed the maximum eight-year term.
Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients’ Association said statutory regulation was the only way to ensure that patients and the public were protected.
“Doctors, nurses and pharmacists have all had strengthened regulations to further protect patients and the public,” he said. “The private ambulance service should not be excluded from such regulation.”
The Department of Health said the HSE required compliance with PHECC standards when sourcing private ambulance providers. It said there was “no licensing system for private ambulance services under the Health Acts”.
