Freedom to Care                                                                                                    Return to INDEX

Suspension of whistleblowers in West Midlands Ambulance Service

West Midlands Ambulance Service was formed by merging several ambulance services in 2006.  The merger of Staffordshire Ambulance Service was delayed but took place in 2007.

One of the economies sought from the mergers was by closing control rooms and controlling larger areas from fewer centres.  On 18 May 2006 control room staff were so overstretched that one emergency call were not answered at all for six minutes.   After the BBC saw control room logs the suspension of three staff was announced on 31 July 2007.  On 7 August 2007 the Ambulance Service admitted that the report was correct and reinstated two of the three suspended staff.  The other whistleblower, Steve Jetley, publicly announced his resignation on 16 August 2007.

The ostensible reason for the suspensions and impending disciplinary hearings is breach of the Data Protection Act.  While it is likely that the control room logs supplied to the BBC would contain personal data in the form of names, addresses etc of patients, the focus of the reports has been on the promptness of response to calls and the geographical deployment of ambulances, all of which is outside the scope of the Data Protection Act.

See a summary of the BBC reports.

See our letter to the West Midlands Ambulance NHS Trust, and responses from West Midlands Ambulance NHS Trust and the Information Commissioner's Office.