South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAMB) has told people to disregard a ‘voice mail’ message that has been circulating on social media purporting to come from someone who had a meeting with their team.
In the clip, a female claims that she has ‘just been to a meeting with SECAMB’ regarding the COVID-19 pandemic that is expected to peak across the country next week.
The female in the voice recording claims that SECAMB will ‘not be sending ambulances to people with breathing difficulties’ during next week (commencing 13th April) and that ‘patients with breathing difficulties’ will be ‘told to manage their own symptoms at home’.
In the message, a female said:
“Ok, so I am sending this message after a meeting that I have just had at work.
“When I say to you that I did not realise the severity of what it is going to be like next week, I need to pass this on to all family and friends.
“This has come from Public Health England to all ambulance services in the UK.
“We are being moved upstairs at SECAMB.
“As of Thursday this week, we will be hitting our peak of 900 deaths per day.
“One-third of them (deaths) are going to be babies or children or teenagers with no underlying health issues.
“The scariest thing they said is that if anyone phones up (999) to say that they are struggling to breathe, then we will be telling them to manage their symptoms at home.
“And when I asked at what point we will be sending (ambulances) they said that they wouldn’t be (sending any ambulances)”.
However, SECAMB and other NHS Ambulance Trusts around the country have said that the message is not correct and that people should not listen to it/forward to other people.
A spokesperson for SECAMB said:
“We are aware of a voice message being shared currently on social media regarding the ambulance response to coronavirus.
“The alarmist information being shared in the message is not correct.
“We would urge people to disregard the message and not share it further.
“In line with our ongoing plans during this challenging time, we are continuing to follow national guidelines regarding the ambulance response and thank the public for their ongoing support in following the government’s advice”.
Professor Viv Bennett, Chief Nurse at Public Health England, said:
“We are aware of a voice message circulating about the ambulance response to coronavirus, as well as restrictions on movement and predicted case numbers, which claims to come from PHE.
“This is fake news, and we would urge people to ignore the message and not share it further”.
CLICK here to join our Emergency Services News community on Facebook.
Our social media group/community is open to both the public and emergency services personnel.
It is also a great place to share any emergency services related content (such as videos) which you have filmed.
If you have a story or video that you would like us to cover/share, then you can contact our team via contact@emergency-services.news
We also cover stories which relate to the NHS, the armed forces and the security services.
Before you go...
We need your help. As former emergency services & armed forces personnel, we pride ourselves on bringing you important, fast-moving and breaking news stories & videos which are free from the negative bias which is often directed at the emergency services & NHS by some sections of the mainstream media.
One of the reasons we started 'Emergency Services News' back in 2018 was because we became tired of reading badly informed stories about the emergency services & NHS which seemed only ever to highlight negative aspects of the job.
We want to be the unheard voice of the remarkable men and women who serve in the emergency services, NHS and armed forces. And with around 500k page views each month, we are getting there!
As income from ads, the mainstay source of income for most publishers, continues to decline; we need the help of you, our readers.
You can support emergency services news from as little as £1. It only takes a minute. Every contribution, however big or small, is vital for our future.
Please help us to continue to highlight the life-saving work of the emergency services, NHS and armed forces by becoming a supporter.
