The government has branded North West Ambulance Service performance 'clearly unacceptable'. The comments come as hundreds of people have been left waiting hours for ambulances this week.
On Monday night, the medical director of North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) shared a sombre message as he stood outside in the freezing cold. Looking into the camera of a mobile phone, he admitted that 111 and 999 services were being overwhelmed.
Chris Grant, the NWAS leader, apologised for the delays patients across Greater Manchester were facing last night as 600 people were left stranded without help as they waited for an ambulance. Meanwhile, 100 ambulances were forced to wait outside hospitals across the region waiting to hand patients over to hospital doctors - the temperatures were below freezing.
On Tuesday, the crisis continued as once again hundreds of vehicles were stuck outside hospitals, unable to hand over patients to doctors and get back out onto the road to help the people waiting for an ambulance.
READ MORE: Paramedics plead for help as a shattered ambulance service under terrifying pressure is overwhelmed
Today (Wednesday), the Department of Health and Social Care has issued a statement calling the performance 'unacceptable', promising billions of pounds over the next two years to fix the service. In response to the scenes in recent days, a government spokesperson told the Manchester Evening News : “These levels of performance are clearly unacceptable, and patients deserve access to the highest-quality urgent and emergency care.
"That is why we are prioritising health and social care with up to £14.1 billion over the next two years, on top of record funding. This winter, we are taking action to reduce ambulance handover delays.
"This includes; setting up 24/7 data driven system control centres in every local area to manage demand and ensure patients can access treatment as quickly as possible, increasing capacity in hospitals, and investing £500 million to speed up the safe discharge of people from hospital into social care – ensuring ambulances can get back out on the road.
“This is on top of £150 million this year for ambulance services to help meet pressures, £20 million to upgrade the ambulance fleet, and boosting call handlers.”
At 5pm on Monday (December 12), more than 600 patients were waiting for an ambulance across the North West, the service said. Another 100 emergency vehicles were parked outside of hospitals waiting to handover patients.
Ambulance chiefs said they had to 'maximise resources' by putting all clinically-trained staff on the frontline and increasing use of private providers.
On Tuesday, North West Ambulance Service said the trust’s 111 service was still experiencing a significant number of calls, with "300 calls waiting, while over 300 patients wait for an available ambulance and over 40 emergency vehicles are experiencing substantial handover wait times with patients at several regional hospitals".
The latest turmoil comes ahead of impending industrial action, as paramedics, call handlers, emergency care assistants and other ambulance workers have voted in their masses to strike - over pay and patient safety.
The M.E.N. reached out to a number of Greater Manchester politicians - both Conservative and Labour. The crippled ambulance service was branded as ‘shocking’, ‘terrifying’ and a sign that our health system is ‘creaking like never before’.
Paramedics previously told the M.E.N they are braced for criticism for striking as the NHS heads into a difficult winter, but that patient safety will only continue to decline if nothing is done. Speaking anonymously, paramedics said patients are already unsafe after 'years' of ambulance services being underfunded and understaffed.
One paramedic cast a dark forecast as NWAS enters what would normally be its most difficult time of year, even without the added pressure. "This is the way it's going to be in the future, we all know it's coming, if we don't hit 1,000 waiting by the end of January I'll be stunned," they warned.
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