Daily Insight: Jobs for the boys

The only two female chief executives of ambulance trusts have spoken candidly about the serious and systemic cultural problems within the sector that they are working to eradicate.

Helen Ray, chief executive of North East Ambulance Service, described at an NHS Confed event how there is something “deeply wrong” within the ambulance service and said female staff members have come to accept sexualised behaviour and banter from male colleagues and patients.

Siobhan Melia, who is interim CEO of South East Coast Ambulance Service, after she moved this summer from a community trust, spoke of how it was like a “different planet” from other bits of the NHS.

She described how senior male staff members were taking it upon themselves to abuse their power, [with] both female students and female lower-graded staff and stressed she was working to instil confidence that this sort of behaviour was being stamped out.

HSJ readers added some interesting comments beneath the story, with one describing a “jobs for the boys” environment when they worked in the sector over 30 years ago and how it appears “very little has changed”.

The sector is still clearly so far behind the rest of the NHS when it comes to equality and culture and all of its leaders have a huge task.

And it’s not even winter yet

November’s monthly performance data drop from NHS England brought with it the now well-established tidings of unprecedented grim news, as we reported here yesterday.

Long waits in emergency departments rose by their highest monthly margin in October as performance continued to deteriorate across emergency services and planned care.

Statistics published by NHSE showed 43,792 patients waited more than 12 hours in accident and emergency from decision to admit to admission in October – a rise of 11,016 from the 32,776 12-hour waits recorded in September.

The monthly performance data also revealed ambulance response times for category two patients, which include suspected heart attacks and strokes, were the worst ever recorded in October – breaching over an hour on average against the 18-minute target.

Moreover, the one area which appeared to be going in the right direction – progress on 78-week breaches which NHSE has pledged to eliminate by March – also appears to be stalling.

Trusts posted another month-on-month reduction in patients waiting more than 78 weeks, cutting the further 349 off the total, to hit 50,539 in September. But those monthly reductions have got smaller in each of the last four months, and there are concerns the rising seasonal pressures could further derail efforts.