A PARAMEDIC who allegedly refused to take a mother to hospital for an emergency caesarean section because he was on his break lied to midwives at the scene about being ordered to stay, a tribunal heard.

Ian Radford told midwives at the home birth in Weymouth that control room staff had instructed him not to take her to hospital because another ambulance was en route and he was overdue a break, the Health Professions Council (HPC) heard.

Radford had ‘deliberately misled’ them and no such order had been given, it was said.

The panel previously heard that he remained in the ambulance while an unnamed female technician told midwives the crew had been on duty for seven-and-a-half hours without stopping and would not be taking the mother to hospital.

Senior midwife Shirley Pike, who told the panel she feared the infant would die, said the crew had done ‘absolutely nothing’ after arriving at the scene at around 1.50pm on May 5 last year.

The mother, who had hit complications when the unborn child’s pulse began to drop alarmingly and failed to descend through the cervix, was rushed to hospital 11 minutes later by another ambulance crew.

Both survived following emergency surgery.

Radford is accused of declining to assess the patient or provide practical assistance, delaying the provision of patient care and misleading other professions about his readiness upon arrival. He denies the charges.

Roderick Moore, defending, insisted that Radford had not been specifically asked to assist with the birth but would have acted if he had been told of the urgency of the situation.

Radford was sacked in July last year following an internal investigation by the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

Ben Kemp, for the HPC, said: “His explanation for his inaction was that he was not authorised to convey the patient.

“In fact, there is no such reference amongst the transcripts of radio conversations to support the giving of that instruction by control.

“In any event, evidence before the panel is quite clear that the overriding practice is that the discretion lay with the practitioner on the ground to act in the interests of the patient.

“He deliberately misled those in attendance by stating that he was unable to convey. He has properly accepted that he was aware this was an emergency request for assistance and that it related to a pool birth and urgent need to convey to hospital.

“He has also accepted that he was fully aware of the midwife's request to convey to hospital.

“The fact is that he failed to do so and he and his crew failed to assist in any way whatsoever beyond offering to provide some equipment.”

The hearing was adjourned after running out of time.

Further coverage

Mr Radford has asked us to give some further coverage of his defence.

Mr Radford says he told the tribunal that both he and the second ambulance crew reasonably understood that the second ambulance would take the patient to hospital.

Secondly, he said if the urgency of the situation had been explained to him he would have acted immediately and taken the patient himself.

Mr Radford’s solicitors say that the hearing was also told that there was a general breakdown in communications at the scene and it was not just Mr Radford at fault in that regard.

They add that that Mr Radford had an ‘exemplary record’ prior to the date of this incident.

The hearing reconvenes in November.