Widow of County Durham crash victim Aaron Morris criticises private ambulance firm after inquest
by Nicole Goodwin · ChronicleLiveA widow who was pregnant with twins when her husband died on her 28th birthday has criticised the third-party ambulance company which attended the scene that day.
Samantha Morris waited over two years for answers on how her husband Aaron Morris died following a collision between a car and his motorbike in Esh Winning, County Durham, on July 1, 2022, despite having a 95% chance of survival.
On Friday, an inquest ruled that there were elements of neglect from the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) which contributed to Aaron's death. This was due to delays in reaching the scene during high demand and a missed opportunity to dispatch a specialist medic to the crash site, who was attending a meeting she didn't need to be in.
Samantha said it had been a "difficult, emotional and exhausting week" as she attended the inquest to hear evidence from NEAS, Durham Constabulary, Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) and Ambulnz, the third-party ambulance company which was supporting NEAS.
She added: "I have listened to excuses and arguing over the minutes leading to Aaron's death, particularly from Ambulnz, which has been draining."
The inquest at County Durham and Darlington Coroner's Court heard how the private company had been allocated the job at 1.08pm and was on scene by 1.21pm. However, Aaron's condition had deteriorated in the 54 minutes he had been waiting for an ambulance since the first 999 call was made.
He suffered a cardiac arrest en-route to Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI), resulting in the ambulance crew diverting to the nearest hospital, University Hospital of North Durham (UHND). The court heard how the ambulance crew were usually based north of the River Tyne and had to rely on directions from Samantha to reach the hospital as they were unfamiliar with the area.
Samantha agreed that this was the right decision from the driver to save on the time it would have taken to pull over and re-programme the navigation system. But she also told the court that "the people who manage and train him should have given him the tools to know where the nearest hospital is." Updates have since been made to the navigation system to make it easier to select a hospital, the court heard.
Following the inquest Samantha said that she felt "disappointed" that the company had not offered to speak with her about what had been learnt from Aaron's death until half way through the inquest, and had not attended court since the offer was made.
Samantha said: "I am disappointed that Ambulnz, the 3rd party provider, did not offer to sit down with me until [during the inquest] to go through their lessons learnt. They have not been in attendance since that offer was made on Wednesday...so the meeting has not taken place."
Ambulnz said they have now spoken to Samantha's family liaison officer to arrange the meeting and remain committed to addressing any further questions.
Meanwhile, Samantha praised NEAS and GNAAS for working with her following Aaron's death and their openness and honesty through the inquest.
She added: "The transparency and proactive approach of NEAS and GNAAS is appreciated and I am glad lessons have been learnt. Changes have already been implemented to prevent other families having to go through such a terrible experience. They have offered me support before, during and after the inquest and we have had open discussions about how the new trauma desk works and the organisation changes that have been made.
"After hearing the evidence from Dr Noble, Medical Director for NEAS, on preventing future deaths, I would now feel confident dialling 999 and requesting a North East Ambulance which I never thought I would say. I do not doubt that, had GNAAS attended, the skills and expertise of their paramedics would have saved Aaron’s life. We are lucky to have such a charity in our region."
A spokesperson for Ambulnz Community Partners said: "We are sorry that Mrs Morris was upset by our offer during the inquest. Ambulnz routinely contributes to NHS ambulance service incident reviews, where families receive a full explanation of care and any lessons learned, and we did so in this case.
"Ahead of the inquest, we conducted an additional internal review, which was shared with the Coroner to be shared with all Interested Persons, including Mrs Morris.
"Our intention has always been to offer to meet with Mrs Morris after the inquest's conclusion. While this was raised during proceedings, holding the meeting beforehand would not have been appropriate. Following the conclusion, we promptly contacted her family liaison officer to arrange the meeting and remain committed to addressing any further questions. We extend our sincere condolences to Mrs Morris and her family."
Dr Kat Noble, medical director for North East Ambulance Service, said: "Firstly, I would like to say to Samantha, and all of Aaron's family that I am deeply sorry.
"When concerns were raised with us about Aaron's care, we reported these as a serious incident and undertook a thorough investigation into what had happened. We shared the outcome of the serious investigation review with Aaron's family.
"There were a number of organisations involved in this case and we unreservedly apologise for not providing the right care from our service when Aaron needed it.
"We accept that opportunities were missed to deploy a clinical team leader to this incident. This is the responsibility of the teams monitoring incoming and changing information about a patient's condition, rather than one responder alone and we have made changes to our deployment processes to ensure that this couldn't happen again.
"There were a number of other actions arising from the review of this incident that we have taken forward to improve the coordination of our response and we fully accept the coroner's findings and conclusion."
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