GPs are driving the sick to A&E because ambulances arrive too late: Patients are waiting four hours for paramedic to attend life-threatening emergencies 

  • GPs says doctors are watching patients ‘deteriorate before their eyes'
  • Some have even given up and taken people to hospital themselves
  • Leading GPs say people are dying needlessly because ambulance service cannot cope with volume of calls

Family doctors are driving critically ill patients to hospital in their car because ambulances take too long to arrive, a report warns.

Patients are waiting up to four hours for paramedics to attend life-threatening emergencies such as sepsis, severe asthma attacks and strokes.

An organisation representing thousands of GPs says doctors are having to watch patients ‘deteriorate before their eyes.’ Some have even given up and taken people to hospital themselves.

Family doctors are driving critically ill patients to hospital in their car because ambulances take too long to arrive, a report warns  (file photo) 

Family doctors are driving critically ill patients to hospital in their car because ambulances take too long to arrive, a report warns  (file photo) 

Leading GPs say people are dying needlessly because the ambulance service cannot cope with the volume of calls.

Latest NHS figures show that paramedics arrive late to a third of life-threatening calls and response times are the worst on record. Only last week Yorkshire Ambulance Service said it had downgraded some calls, meaning heart attack and stroke victims may wait up to 40 minutes.

The crisis has been blamed on growing pressures from migration, the ageing population and patients dialling 999 as they cannot reach their GP. To make matters worse, ambulances are then having to queue outside A&E – unable to offload patients because the department is too busy.

The NHS does not say how long patients have to wait for paramedics – they simply state the percentage of late responses. But to highlight the extent of the crisis, pressure group GP Survival asked its 6,000 members for evidence of dangerous delays.

One doctor said a patient had recently died from cardiac arrest after waiting 45 minutes for an ambulance. Another from the north of England said they waited four hours with a patient who had sepsis – whose organs were quickly shutting down. A doctor from the south-west said paramedics took 45 minutes to reach a five-year-old boy having a severe asthma attack.

Leading GPs say people are dying needlessly because the ambulance service cannot cope with the volume of calls (file photo) 

Leading GPs say people are dying needlessly because the ambulance service cannot cope with the volume of calls (file photo) 

He said: ‘Nothing is worse than watching someone deteriorate in front of your eyes.’ Several doctors admitted they had given up waiting and taken patients to hospital on their own.

They included a GP from the Midlands who waited two hours for paramedics to help a middle-aged woman with a stroke. The evidence has been compiled in a report and shared with Pulse magazine and the Daily Mail.

Dr Matt Mayer, a GP in Buckinghamshire who is also chair of GP Survival, said: ‘It is without doubt that patients from babies to the elderly are dying unnecessarily in cases like these.’

The organisation – which aims to improve the NHS – said the crisis was caused by a lack of funding for the ambulance service.

Rehana Azam, national secretary of the GMB union, which represents paramedics, added: ‘These horrifying case studies are the result of years of chronic under-funding of the NHS and ambulance service.’

Figures from NHS England show that ambulances were late to 35 per cent of Category A calls – the most serious – last year.

The pressures are being fuelled by an unprecedented demand from the ageing population and patients who are not seriously ill. Some paramedics have also reported pressure from migrants who either do not register with a surgery or do not know where to find a walk-in centre.

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘Patients deserve the highest standard of care. Services are under pressure but the NHS continues to perform well, with ambulances making 3,400 more emergency journeys every day compared with 2010.’


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