Area on the SW Coastpath where incidents happen

Dear Mick Cooke

Thank you for your attached requests for information on incidents on or by
the South West Coastpath in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset which we received
on 14 January 2011 and 25 January 2011.

We have dealt with these requests in accordance with your right of access
to information we hold under the Freedom of Information Act ("the Act") as
requested. I attach a leaflet containing further information about both
your rights and our obligations under this legislation. You will see from
this that we are not obliged to generate information we do not already
hold in order to provide what we are asked for, such as by collating data
or formulating direct answers to questions, but you are entitled to
receive copies of records (or extracts from them) that contain the
information you have requested.

I have discussed your request with our Information Team. They have advised
that we cannot reliably extract incidents attended on or by the coastpath.
This is because of how our system works, and the methods available to
search for incidents.

We have a number of `locations' recorded in our system. This could be a
street, or another key location such as an airport. From the locations in
the system, we can send information to the ambulance regarding where they
need to go. When we receive a 999 call, the call taker selects the nearest
location to the incident registered on the system. If the location is a
general area, rather than a specific point, they may also select a grid
reference to pinpoint the actual location for the ambulance crew. That
grid reference will be recorded.

We do not have any specific locations registered in our system for the
South West Coastpath. If details are recorded on our system identifying an
incident as being on or by the coastpath, this will be in `free text'
fields. We can search on these, but it will only pick up those incidents
where the free-text includes words such as `coastpath'. Call taking staff
may provide explanation of the location without referring to the
coastpath, and these incidents would not be picked up from this. Incidents
with typing errors in the free text, such as `caost', would similarly not
be identified from this.

We can search by grid reference, but only specific values. Our system does
not have the capacity to identify incidents within a boundary defined by
grid references. This means we would need each and every grid reference
covering the area you are interested in to extract incidents attended
there. As we work on 12 figure grid references, this would be a very large
number of references. We therefore estimate it would exceed the time limit
set out under the Act to search individually under each grid reference.

We are also able to search on incidents attended in a postcode area. For
incidents on or near the coastpath, however, the location selected will
either be the `general area' of the nearest town or village, or the
nearest location recorded in the system. A significant number of the
incidents identified will, therefore, not be on or near the coastpath.

The options we can offer are therefore:

1. Search for all incidents where the `free text' field contains
reference to the coastpath (will not only pick up a proportion of relevant
incidents)

2. Search by postcode areas, but we would need you to supply all
relevant postcodes (will include a lot of incidents not on or near the
coastpath)

For each of the incidents identified, we would be able to provide the
number of casualties we were advised of at the time of the call. We would
also be able to identify whether patients were airlifted by our own air
ambulances, but not where patients were airlifted by other resources (for
example RAF). We have no means of extracting whether coastguard assistance
was required. This would also be recorded in free text fields, this time a
notepad, with the same limitations as explained above.

In view of what we can provide, please can you confirm if you still
require information from us and, if so, how you would like us to extract
this. We will then provide this within the same working day in accordance
with the timescales stipulated by the Act.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or require clarification on any
aspect of your request or how we will respond, please do not hesitate to
contact me.

Yours sincerely

Carla Bryan | Information Governance Manager

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust
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Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter EX2 7HY

References

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Dear Mick Cooke,

I refer to the acknowledgement on 11 February 2011 of your request for
information about incidents on or by the South West Coastpath in Devon,
Cornwall and Somerset under the provisions of the Freedom of Information
Act.

I am pleased to now be in a position to respond to your request and
apologise for the delay in completing our response to your first request.

Information requested in Our response
your first request (FoI
533)
How many call outs and/or 86 call outs in Jan
incidents on or by the 2008 to Jan 2011 (as
South West Coast path in per the time period of
Devon, Cornwall, Somerset your second request)
did the SW ambulance
service respond to from This information is
Jan 2008 to Dec 2010. based on number of
incidents that had the
free text ‘coast
path’ somewhere in
the address as
requested. As
previously explained
this will be an
under-recording of the
number of incidents on
or near the cost path
as they will not all
have this phrase within
the address.
How many had Coastguard Unknown – we do not
Attendance/Assistance? record this information
in a searchable format.
Do you have a record of Of the 86 callouts
how many of the casualties there were 22 where a
needed to be airlifted? casualty was airlifted
– there would
normally be only 1
casualty airlifted per
call out.
Information requested in
your second request (FoI
539)
Could you let me know what The number of call outs
areas on The South West to the nearest
Coast path had the most city/town/village
incidents in the period of recorded in the
Jan 2008 to Jan 2011 that incident address:
involved SW Ambulance
response. Barnstaple 1
Bideford 3
Boscastle 1
Braunton 1
Bridgwater 1
Brixham 3
Bude 2
Budleigh Salterton 2
Dartmouth 1
Dawlish 1
Delabole 1
Helston 3
Ilfracombe 4
Kingsbridge 4
Looe 4
Lynmouth 3
Minehead 1
Newquay 2
Padstow 3
Penzance 10
Plymouth 4
Port Isaac 2
Seaton 2
Sidmouth 2
St Austell 2
St Ives 11
Teignmouth 1
Tintagel 3
Torquay 1
Truro 2
Wadebridge 2
Weston-super-Mare 1
Woolacombe 2
Total 86

We are aware this response will automatically be published. In view of
this, we have considered whether we would give permission for re-use of
this information in this way if this had been sought as required under the
Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations. We confirm our permission
for this by responding to this e-mail address.

I trust this provides you with the information you sought but please feel
free to contact me if you require further clarification of the information
provided, or to discuss any aspect of our response to your request.
However, if you are dissatisfied with our response, you also have the
right to make use of the following complaints procedures:

· In the first instance you may write to the Chief Executive of
this Trust

Mr Ken Wenman

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Abbey Court

Eagle Way

Exeter EX2 7HY

Mr Wenman will then either make arrangements for your complaint to be
reviewed and for the outcome to be communicated to you, or will convene a
panel of Trust Directors to consider an appeal against a decision to
withhold information.

· If you are unhappy with the response to your complaint, or
findings of the Panel, you can write to the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire. SK9 5AF

Tel: 01625 545 700

Fax: 01625 524 510

Yours sincerely

Mary Bartlett

Mary Bartlett | Information Governance Project Specialist

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust
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Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter EX2 7HY

References

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3. http://www.swast.nhs.uk/