On Saturday 7 January a resident alerted me to a report on social media suggesting that an ambulance was ‘unable’ to respond to a call from a property in Park Avenue the night before, and that as a result a patient had been left unattended.
In addition the author of the post goes on to suggest that the recently installed drop-down bollards at either end of the footpath down the middle of Park Avenue had something to do with this incident. The social media post is shown below:
I’ve written to the relevant authorities this weekend to raise my concerns on behalf of residents, and also to ask NEAS (North East Ambulance Service) to check their records and determine what the precise nature of the reported incident had been and what the potential impact might have been in terms of risk to the patient.
I’ve reproduced my email correspondence here in full (with personal details redacted) and I’ll update on developments as soon as I have a response from the services involved:
Good morning *******,
On Saturday morning I was alerted to a post on social media appearing to suggest that an ambulance was prevented from responding to a call from a property in Park Avenue in Blackhall Colliery. I’ve included a screenshot image of the post in the attached document.
As you’ll gather from the post drop-down bollards were installed recently at either end of the footpath running down the middle of Park Avenue. This was intended to prevent dangerous and illegal access by vehicles while still enabling access to emergency and service vehicles. The location of the footpath is shown in the centre of the attached image.
Although the author of the social media post appears to suggest that the bollards were in some way responsible for the ambulance failing to access the property I cannot verify the claim.
For that reason I need to raise this matter with NEAS to confirm whether there was a reported incident on Friday evening in which a patient was potentially put at risk. I’m not sure at which level a query of this nature ought to be raised so could you either provide me with details of a suitable NEAS contact please or alternatively pass this query to the relevant department at NEAS for their attention and response.
****,
As you’ll see there may have been an incident at Park Avenue on Friday evening, so depending on the outcome of this query would you be prepared to follow up please on any potential issues that may have been caused by the bollards at Park Avenue.
Please cc all recipients in any further correspondence.
Regards,
Rob.
Cllr Rob Crute (Blackhall Division)
Deputy Leader of the Labour Group
Durham County Council
BACKSTORY: Please follow the links in this article for full background details on this matter: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2022/11/drop-down-bollards-at-park-avenue.html
