Have free calls for people using Community Alarms waiting on ambulatory response

Rejected 13 signatures

What the petition asks

Current resource demands on the emergency services is currently extreme, with Ambulances regularly taking several hours to attend non-emergency calls. The majority of contact centres will ensure calls from Ambulatory Care or response remain connected until a responder or Ambulance arrives.

Community Alarms contact centres nationwide would be able to provide evidence to support a need for the host telephony providers (generally BT or Virgin) to provide free of charge calls to prescribed contact centre numbers. In recent examples, we can evidence call charges in excess of £20 on at least 3 occasions from 1 contact centre alone. Vulnerable people, often on relatively low income, are being penalised at their most vulnerable time - often returning from hospital to receive hefty bills.

Why it was rejected

It asked for something that is not the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament.

We can't accept petitions which call for actions that aren't the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament. This would be the responsibility of the telephone service providers and NHS ambulance services.

Telephone service providers are regulated by the independent regulator, Ofcom. You can find out how to contact Ofcom here:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/contact-us

NHS ambulance services in England are run by regional NHS Ambulance Trusts. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) coordinates and implements nationally agreed NHS ambulance policies. You can find out how to contact AACE here:

https://aace.org.uk/contact-us/

Timeline

7 Mar 2019	Petition opened for signatures
15 Mar 2019	Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 13

Status Rejected

Rejected 15 Mar 2019

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