A REVIEW into a controversial project which saw ambulances delayed to up to 20,000 patients has found no evidence it caused patients harm - but cannot exclude it.

Between December 2014 and February 2015, South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb) delayed dispatching ambulances to urgent but not life-threatening calls.

The secret pilot scheme gave paramedics an extra ten minutes to call the patient back to get more information and potentially upgrade or downgrade the call’s priority level.

It was pushed through by then chief executive Paul Sutton, who has since resigned, to try and manage high demand and difficulties meeting national response times. It was not approved by board members, the 111 NHS helpline or commissioners.

A review published today by West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust concludes: “A review of all the evidence considered found there was no evidence of patient harm but the project cannot completely exclude that any incident of harm occurred.”

Reviewers examined calls data as well as seven individual cases and said in one of those it was not possible to totally exclude harm caused by the project.

But they added if “effective clinical governance arrangements for the project had been in place, it would have been easier to measure any positive or negative effects.”

The calls affected were those transferred from NHS 111 to 999 in the second most serious category - Category A Red 2.

Those covers conditions such as strokes or fits but not immediately life-threatening conditions where the speed of response may be critical to save lives or improve the patient's outcome.

All NHS Ambulance services are supposed to respond to 75 per cent of Red calls within eight minutes and 95 per cent within 19 minutes.

Commissioners put a stop to Secamb’s pilot project was in February 2015 when they became fully aware of it and questioned how it had been implemented.

Of the seven individual cases studied in the review, one stroke patient arrived in hospital eleven minutes later due to the project.

However, reviewers found it was not possible to tell whether the delay would have changed the outcome.

The patient’s scans showed too much irreversible damage for blood-thinning drugs to be of any use, it added.

Reviewers said they did not try and contact the rest of the tens of thousands patients affected due to the high volume and risk they might not remember or relatives would be distressed.

Secamb Acting Chief Executive Geraint Davies said: “We are satisfied that this report, which was led by an independent and external clinician and which looked at 185,000 calls, has identified no evidence of patient harm attributable to the Pilot.

"We do however recognise that there were significant governance and other failings around the Pilot.

“I am keen to ensure that the Trust now moves forward. SECAmb is going through an extremely challenging time but I am, with my senior team, committed to making the changes required to improve our service.”