Health board slammed over baby emergency flight 6/6/14
A baby died three days after Western Isles NHS health board caused the father to
miss the birth.
The health board has been criticised for not letting a child accompany his mum on
a emergency flight.
Instead, the father and child had to travel on a regular Flybe plane to the mainland.
The delay meant the woman, identified only as Mrs C, had no family with her at a
distressing time. Mr C was not with her for the birth and their baby died three days
later.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, Jim Martin, found the island health authority
to be in the wrong after the woman complained the board failed to take account of
her circumstances nor of the physical and emotional stress she was under at the time.
His report explained an ambulance plane was urgently summoned to the Western Isles
after a routine scan gave concerns about her baby's heart rate.
The woman was 35 weeks pregnant and it was suggested that she be airlifted to a mainland
hospital for an emergency caesarean section to deliver the baby early.
The report highlighted the ambulance service specifically asked if Mrs C would be
accompanied by an escort. However, health board staff told them that she would be
travelling alone.
Staff refused to provide travel arrangements for the older child though they would
for the husband.
The ombudsman said there was no-one available locally to look after their child so
Mrs C was forced to travel alone in the air ambulance.
The report added: “Our investigation found that it was the board's patient transport
staff who took the decision not to allow Mr and Mrs C’s child to travel in the air
ambulance.
“The ambulance service told us that they would have tried to take Mr C and the child,
had they been asked to do so and had there been capacity on the aircraft.
“However, we noted that they were not asked to decide this.”
The ombudsman said the decision should have been left to the ambulance service, so
that they could decide whether they could carry all three passengers in the air ambulance.
The health board was found to have made the decisions based on its own travel policy
rather than the circumstances of the situation.
In any case, it breached its own guidelines as the “policy specifically says that
it does not apply in emergencies, or cases where the patient is being transferred
between hospitals.”
The report stated: “Both of these criteria applied to the outward journey in Mrs
C's case, and we concluded that it was not appropriate to refer to the policy for
decisions about the air ambulance journey.”
The health board was also criticised for failed to properly investigate who had reached
the decision that Mrs C’s husband and child could not travel on the air ambulance.
This led to inaccurate information in the board's response to her complaint.
The ombudsman recommends that the board apologise to Mr and Mrs C for failing to
pursue the option of their child travelling in the air ambulance with them.
It should refund to Mrs C all reasonable costs incurred for her family’s outward
flight and also consider introducing a policy to cover situations such as that encountered
by Mrs C.