Longer ambulance journeys raise patient risk

LONDON (Reuters) - Seriously ill patients being driven by ambulance to hospital are more likely to die the further they travel, according to research on Tuesday.

The finding comes at a time when the government is looking to cut the number of local accident and emergency departments.

The risk of death rose 1 percent for every six miles travelled by patients suffering from breathing problems, or who were unconscious, the University of Sheffield researchers found.

The government outlined its intention to downgrade A&E departments in a White Paper in 2006, promoting instead community-based services, which could lead to seriously ill patients travelling further to big regional units for treatment.

The study's authors said: "Our data suggest that any changes that increase journey distance to hospital for all emergency patients may lead to an increase in mortality for a small number of patients with life-threatening medical emergencies, unless care is improved."

The study, published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, looked at more than 10,000 cases of seriously ill patients being taken to hospital between 1997 and 2001.

The researchers said their study showed more work was needed on the trend towards specialist regional centres.

The government's director for primary care, Dr. David Colin-Thome, said improvements in technology for heart attacks and major trauma and the use of paramedics in ambulances immeasurably improved the chance of survival.

"Our policy is that your treatment starts in the ambulance," he said. "If you have a heart attack and you go to one of these specialist centres, your outcomes as a patient are immeasurably better than if you go to a local hospital."