‘Private’ 999 Crews Set To Continue

A private emergency ambulance

East Midlands Ambulance Service is set to spend £1m retaining private ambulance services for another three months in order to meet “unprecedented demand”.

It currently uses 28 private emergency crews alongside its own each day, but had planned to stop doing so by the end of January.

Bosses say their own proposed staffing increases won’t be enough to meet demand, meaning the contracts will be extended until the end of March.

Mike Naylor, director of finance at EMAS, said in a report to the organisation’s board:

“To reduce the risk of harm to patients given the unprecedented increase in demand the trust executive is requesting the extension of the existing levels of PAS provision.

“Unfortunately, although this extension will improve response times it will not ensure universal achievement of Ambulance Response Programme standards.”

Last week, EMAS revealed that it received 1,021 calls within the first seven hours of 2020.