AMBULANCE bosses have agreed to scrap a “ludicrous” rule which has led to minor injuries patients from South Lakeland being treated in Lancaster Royal Infirmary instead of Westmorland General Hospital.
Responding to mounting public pressure, the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) is to change a rigid computer procedure that prevents paramedics from exercising their professional judgement when assessing where injured patients should be taken.
The trust says it has accepted the “computer aided dispatch” system it uses needed improving because it did not allow highly trained ambulance crews to override log entries when a patient was less seriously injured than first thought.
According to the current rules, once an injury is given an A or B category, denoting it is serious, the patient must be taken to RLI or Furness General Hospital in Barrow - even if the person is subsequently found to have minor injuries.
Only if a C (minor injury) classification is entered in the log can a patient be taken directly to WGH for treatment.
For more on this story see today's The Westmorland Gazette.
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