North East Ambulance: Family feel betrayed over fuel-stop admission

Peter Coates was dead when the ambulance arrived

The family of a man who died while waiting for an ambulance say they feel "betrayed" after learning it stopped to refuel on the way to his home.

Peter Coates, 62, from Dormanstown near Redcar, had lung disease and relied on a machine for oxygen, but in 2019 it failed during a power cut.

His family is angry that North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) has only now told them the reasons for the delay.

NEAS has offered "sincere condolences" for the "additional distress" caused.

For three years the family were unaware of the full circumstances surrounding the early-hours callout in March 2019.

They were recently contacted by the Sunday Times, which carried a story about claims of cover-ups at NEAS.

Whistleblowers alleged there were about 90 cases in 2018 and 2019 where NEAS had prevented families from getting full information about their relative's deaths and details were withheld from coroners.

'Bitter pill'

Mr Coates' family is among those now viewing the circumstances around the deaths in a different light.

His daughter, Kellie Coates, said of the revelations: "The ambulance station is literally a two-minute drive away from my father's property but [the power cut] had impacted the electrical circuits and no-one knew the manual over-ride [for the shutter] so they couldn't get out of the station.

"They second ambulance was from out of the area and that stopped for fuel on the way - although there is evidence to suggest they didn't need fuel - so by the time they got to my father he was declared dead on arrival."

Ian Coates, Peter's son, said: "To find this out three years later when we'd just finished grieving brought it all back.

"The time he was waiting for that ambulance he was suffering, so it's a bitter pill to swallow.

"We feel betrayed, we put a lot of trust into the NHS and the ambulance service and then to find [this] out."

Adrian Coates would welcome an inquiry

Earlier this week the allegations of cover-ups of paramedic failures were raised in Parliament, and the Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he was considering an investigation.

This has been welcomed by another of Mr Coates' sons, Adrian, who said: "I think it's the only way to get a clear-cut and non-biased report done.

"We don't know who's covered it up and how high it goes, so then to ask the same people to expose their own wrong doing ... it doesn't seem to me to be the right way."

Mathew Beattie, NEAS medical director, said, "We would like to offer our sincere condolences to Mr Coates' family and for any additional distress we have caused to them.

"During the process of reviewing the disclosure to the coroner's office, we identified that some information had not been disclosed in this case.

"In a letter to the coroner in May 2020, we made a full disclosure of information that had not previously been shared.

"This included a statement from the crew and an incident report log, which detailed a delay by the responding crew as they needed to refuel the vehicle on route.

"In this case, the coroner was ultimately provided with all relevant information.

"The coroner accepted the late full disclosure of information. It did not impact on the outcome of the inquest hearing."