Response team officers based in Gloucestershire have been conveying patients who have suffered from heart attacks to A&E when there are no emergency ambulances available to respond to the 999 call.
The region’s police and crime commissioner, Chris Nelson, confirmed to ITV News that Gloucestershire Constabulary are helping to ease the pressure on the ambulance service by responding to emergency calls.
Speaking at a police and crime panel, he said:
“Although in theory, the hospitals, mental health and patients are not our direct responsibility.
“It’s the police that are having to take people who are having heart attacks to hospital, [when] the ambulances can’t come.
“Police officers have to take them to hospital, take them directly into A&E, and jump the queue so that that person having a heart attack can get immediate treatment. It’s dreadful, some of the stories that I hear.”
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust told reporters that it is aware of one specific incident where police control room staff confirmed to its EOC staff that an ambulance would no longer be required at a call since officers had taken the patient to A&E themselves rather than waiting for an emergency ambulance to become free.
A spokesperson for SWASFT said the whole health and social care system has been under sustained pressure for many months now, meaning patients have to wait longer for an ambulance than expected.
“Our performance has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, partly due to handover delays caused by capacity issues in hospitals, and in community and social care.
“This means it’s currently taking us too long to get an ambulance to patients.
“We continue to work on a daily basis with our partners to ensure our crews can get back out on the road as quickly as possible, to respond to other 999 calls.”
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Brilliant. Well done. Now should the ambulance service do a press release about all the police jobs you send us to deal with?