New figures have revealed the depth of the crisis in ambulance
services, as patients were left waiting as long as an hour and 37
minutes for 999 call handlers to pick up the phone.
Freedom of information responses from NHS ambulance trusts in
England also revealed that patients were waited up to 3 hours for
their 111 calls to be answered in December.
Patients using the 111 service whose symptoms require a call back
from a nurse have also been waiting more than a day to hear from
the service. FOI responses show that last year one patient in the
North West was left waiting more than 40 hours to discuss their
symptoms with a qualified clinician, while people in other parts
of England were forced to wait as long as 30 hours.
Patients waited longer than ever before for ambulances in
December, according to official NHS figures. It took ambulances
an average of 90 minutes to reach those with conditions like
heart attacks and strokes, when the NHS recommends help arrives
within 18 minutes. In total, more than 50,000 ambulance calls
were left ringing for 5 minutes or longer before being
answered. The NHS does not publish the number of people who
hung up before their call is answered.
,
Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said:
“After 13 years of Conservative mismanagement of the NHS,
patients can no longer be sure their 999 call will be answered or
that an ambulance will arrive when they need one. People are just
praying they don’t fall ill or suffer an accident.
“Labour will launch the biggest expansion of NHS staff training
in history, paid for by abolishing non-doms, so that the NHS is
there for us when we need it once again.”
Ends
Notes
- A freedom of information request sent to NHS ambulance trusts
asked for:
-
The longest ambulance response time in each Category in
the Trust in December 2022
-
The longest wait for an answer to (i) 999 and (ii) 111
calls in the Trust in December 2022
