People calling 999 because they are having a heart attack or stroke are being asked to go to hospital themselves amid rising demand.
The West Midlands Ambulance Service, which last week said it was under ‘heavy pressure’, confirmed a change to the script used by 999 call handlers to suggest patients go to hospital during peak times.
A leaked staff memo sent on November 29 said the change was necessary due to long patient waits.
It said that category three and four 999 calls to patients with urgent abdominal pain, falls or vomiting will be told: ‘The ambulance service is under great pressure and we do not have an ambulance available to respond to you. It may take several hours before one is available.
“Is there any way you can make sure you can safely get to a hospital emergency department on your own?”
The memo, seen by the Sunday Times, states that when the ambulance service is under the highest pressure, as it was last week, the request will also apply to category two calls.
These are patients who may have had a stroke or heart attack or suffered severe burns and need to be seen within 18 minutes.
All ambulance services have adapted their scripts for periods of increased demand, with some echoing the West Midlands message while others warn of the long wait times patients will face.
An ambulance trust has confirmed that its 999 call handlers have been instructed to tell patients to go to A&E during peak times (file photo)
A leaked staff memo confirmed the change was made due to patients’ long waits for ambulances (file photo)
Six out of ten ambulance services in England were at the highest alert level last week.
This means they faced ‘extreme pressure’ with the risk of ‘service failure’. The other four were all under ‘heavy pressure’.
In the Midlands, some patients who should have been seen within 18 minutes waited on average for almost an hour.
At one point there were 150 emergency calls in the region with no ambulance available.
The West Midlands Ambulance Service said: ‘If ambulances are delayed in transferring their patient to hospital, they will not be able to respond to the next call.
“There is a direct correlation between hospital transfer delays and our ability to quickly reach patients in the community.”
Since the end of Covid, there have been repeated warnings about the collapse of the NHS’s emergency department. Thousands of people are injured due to the long wait for the ambulance.
Coroners have sent 33 warnings to ambulance trusts after deaths caused by delays (file photo)
This year coroners have sent 33 alerts to ambulance trusts following deaths caused by delays.
One patient affected by the crisis was 93-year-old Pat, a former police typist, who fell at a care home near Market Harborough, Leicestershire, at 2am on Tuesday.
She remained on the ground until an ambulance crew took her to hospital at 5:45 p.m. Her daughter said: ‘She couldn’t communicate and barely moved. She was crying too.”
Even after arriving at Kettering General Hospital, Pat, who has dementia, still had to wait an hour and a half before she could go to A&E. She had surgery for a broken hip.