South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

4. Miss E complains South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust) incorrectly categorised her father’s (Mr E’s) 999 call. She says the Trust should have categorised her father’s heart attack (a condition where the heart’s supply of blood is blocked) as category 1 not 2.

5. She says the resulting delay caused her father’s death as the ambulance did not attend on time.

6. Miss E wants an acknowledgement of failings, an apology, service improvements and financial remedy.

9. Ambulance Trusts categorise 999 calls in order to prioritise which calls should be attended to most quickly. Miss E says the Trust did not categorise her father’s heart attack correctly. She says it should have been a category 1 (the most urgent) not 2.

10. When the person who was with Mr E called 999 to report he was having a heart attack. After assessing Mr E’s condition and symptoms the Trust categorised the call as a category 2. We considered if this was right.

11. The national framework for healthcare professional ambulance responses lists examples of types of conditions which warrant a category 2 response time. It says, ‘examples in this category may be patients with myocardial infarction (heart attack)’. During our call with Miss E, she confirmed to us that when they made the original 999 call her father was having a heart attack.

12. It appears the Trust’s decision to place Mr E as a category 2 response was in line with the above standards. We understand he later became unresponsive, and a cardiac arrest was suspected (a cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood). When this happened, the Trust moved Mr E to category 1. But at the time of its original assessment Mr E was not unresponsive.

13. There does not appear to be any indication the Trust has done anything wrong, and it appears to have categorised Mr E as a category 2 correctly. We can understand why Miss E has raised concerns given her father died. We hope our decision provides reassurance that what the Trust did was right. We are sorry for her loss.

1. We have carefully considered Miss E’s complaint about South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). It is clear from what Miss E told us that events have caused her great distress and upset. We are also sorry to hear about the loss of her father

2. We considered her complaint about the categorisation of the 999 call. There is no sign anything went wrong. The Trust correctly categorised the call as a category 2 and there was nothing to suggest the call should have been a category 1. Therefore, we will not be taking any further action on the complaint.

3. We understand that losing a loved one is hard, and our decision is not intended to dimmish Miss E’s distress. We hope our decision reassures her that the Trust’s assessment and categorisation was right.