16 Jul 2015

Ambulance crisis: why taxis are filling the cracks in the system

An investigation by Channel 4 News has revealed that hard-pressed ambulance trusts are increasingly relying on taxis to take patients to hospital even in an emergency.

Freedom of Information requests reveal that taxis have been used thousands of times in the past year alone – including some serious cases.

One trust admitted a woman suffering from an ectopic pregnancy had been transported to hospital in a cab.  The same trust said that 10 times in the past year it had used them for patients who had overdosed on drugs.

The London Ambulance Service used more than 6,000 taxis in just six months from August to February.  Yorkshire called them out for emergencies more than 2,000 times last year.  And the North East of England sent them instead of an ambulance just under 2,000 times.

All of this is against a background of a service under intense pressure.

Channel 4 News has been given exclusive access to a report for the campaigning group, the NHS Support Federation, which shows an increased reliance by trusts on non-NHS ambulances.

The report, by Nick Turner, put together after the death of his mother, reveals that between January last year and March 2015, more than 300,000 calls to the 999 emergency line were answered by private and voluntary ambulances.

It is rare for these ambulances to have a fully trained paramedic on board.

South East Coast Ambulance Service, for instance, said that only 2 per cent of the non-NHS ambulances have a paramedic on board.

The report points to the different coping strategies by NHS ambulance trusts to deal with the ever increasing demand, while at the same time dealing with a chronic shortage of trained paramedics.

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