10,000 signatures reached
To: Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups
Stop this shambolic Sussex Ambulance privatisation
Please sign and share this petition to demand Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups immediately end this untenable contract and return it to public ownership and with the appropriate level of funding.
Why is this important?
On April 1st a woefully-ill-equipped private firm, Coperforma, replaced the NHS’s South East Coast Ambulance Service in a botched privatisation of NHS services. The mobile phone app the company uses often doesn’t work, especially in areas of poor mobile reception and its own ambulance drivers have said the company is ‘out of its depth’.
The result?
• Cancer patients have missed oncology appointments after ambulances failed to turn up to collect them.
• Patients with kidney failure have not been able to receive scheduled sessions of kidney dialysis for the same reason, with some missing two of their three treatments in a week.
• So many patients have become stuck at the Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton because their transport has not arrived that it has paid for taxis and other private vehicle suppliers to take them home.
• Staff there have had to stay until midnight to ensure kidney patients arriving hours after their scheduled start time have received vital dialysis.
• Coperforma vehicles have turned up to collect patients who have already died.
Patients, relatives, NHS bodies, Trade Unions and local MPs have severely criticised the service’s performance but still local CCGs persist with the untenable private company.
The previous public provider regularly had approval ratings of over 90%.
For more information
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/12/patients-wait-hours-for-ambulances-nhs-transport-service-privatised-sussex
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/local/14432002.Patient_transport_company_out_of_its_depth__say_its_own_drivers/
