Arriva slated by seniors

The non-emergency patient transport service run by Arriva has been criticised by the Bradford Area Seniors Forum at its recent meeting in Holt. Here's an extract from their report:

"Among issues raised that are not specific to Holt were concerns about potential cuts to pensions and pensioner benefits and, as the Forum has heard elsewhere in Wiltshire, more horror stories about the appallingly unreliable non-emergency ambulance service provided by Arriva Transport Solutions Ltd (the operator contracted by Wiltshire NHS CCG to provide this service for patients living in Wiltshire).

One lady told of being picked up from home in Holt at 7.00am to be taken for a 2pm appointment at the BRI in Bristol and also of the Arriva ambulance which was meant to take her home after the appointment never turning up at all. Another lady talked about an Arriva ambulance picking her up from home where the driver had been given the wrong hospital name to take her to. Another story involved an Arriva ambulance which never got to Warminster Hospital to take a patient home as it had broken down. (Surely after all this time and so many accounts from both patients and hospital staff about the continued serious unreliability of the service provided by Arriva it is high time that Wilshire NHS Clinical Commissioning Group was taken seriously to task for not taking effective action over Arriva and for not by now having revoked Arriva's contract on account of Arriva's continued, multiple failures to provide an adequate and reliable service. Arriva's persistent failures and unreliability not only causes distress and huge inconvenience to patients, their families and carers, it wastes huge amounts of NHS staff time and adds very considerably to the stress staff are under in the various hospitals, out-patients and other care and treatment facilities. The Forum believes we have heard more than enough excuses from both Arriva and the CCG and that it is now time for these to stop and for effective action to be taken. Arriva should be fired and a replacement service found. Arriva's persistent and repeated failures must be costing local NHS services many hundreds of thousands of pounds in missed appointments, staff time, replacement patient transport, etc.)"

Do you have any good or bad stories about Arriva's performance - if so please get in touch.