New booking procedures at Patient Transport part of Scottish Ambulance Service causing needless misery and stress

I have been arranging patient transport for my Mum for some time now. It has been a wonderful service as patients with a medical need can get to the hospital they require. And the actual transportation continues to be so if you are prepared to be a bit patient (pun!) as each ambulance picks up multiple people so you can get a bit of a tour on the way to your destination.

Since October however I have been having dreadful trouble making a booking on my Mums behalf, now made more complex in that I have to accompany her to the hospital as she is becoming a bit vague on occasions.

It seems that a new system has been imposed from on high. This new system is obviously to put people off using patient transport in order to save money, staff and resources. Whilst this is laudable in the planning stage it is proving anything but to me and probably many like me who require to use this service as there is no other way most of the time of getting my Mum to and from hospital for her regular appointments.

I previously was able to phone up for a booking and it would all be complete within a few minutes as the person at the other end of the phone was able to check the records for my Mum and then confirm everything was okay or not as the case may be, the only previous likely problem being there was no available transport available on the requested day.

Now I must go through an assessment procedure on every single occasion making the required call much longer. Because everyone’s call must be longer you now need to wait in a long queue before even speaking to someone. I also am not permitted to make multiple bookings where this previously caused no problem. The assessment procedure is now also more stringent meaning it is painfully long and taxing – who wants to have the repeat everything on every occasion that patient transport is required if you have a regular need for transport?

I have also failed the assessment on one occasion (this occurring this week) meaning I was unsure how I was going to get my Mum to the hospital for an essential appointment for over 24 hours. There is no complaints procedure built in but you can make an appeal but you obviously have to await the outcome.

My Mum is 83, walks with a stick on her best days, has terminal cancer, is a bit vague and therefore requires to be accompanied yet she was assessed on this occasion as being able to get public transport to the hospital in question for an estimated 9 hour appointment at the hospital. This public transport is two buses which do not coincide with one another at the change over point meaning there is a walk required between two stops.

The new patient transport booking system is making an extremely stressful, physically and emotionally taxing period even worse. It seems the Scottish Ambulance Service has been taking lessons from the UK Department of Work and Pensions and their assessment procedure for illness and disablement benefits.

I now dread having to make patient transport bookings and it is yet another difficulty to cope with when I myself am also ill with ME. This new booking system must change perhaps to a system where terminally ill patients are able to bypass this new assessment system. It is grossly unfair as it stands currently.

(sent to Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in the Scottish Government on 08.11.2014)