Ambulance call handlers in England tell of anguish over death risk to patients

Emergency call handlers told how they received calls from people waiting for ambulances where ‘in some cases, the patient was heard to be deteriorating’. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Ambulance call handlers suffer anxiety about how many people will die before they can get help to them each day, researchers looking into the welfare of NHS staff have found.

Officials from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB) in England asked staff working in urgent and emergency care, including in A&E, NHS 111 call handling centres and ambulance services, for their experiences as part of wider research into NHS care.