A health boss of one of the UK's ambulance services has warned that the service will collapse by August. In a startling interview with a trade title, Mark Docherty, nursing director of West Midlands Ambulance Service, warned that ambulances will stop responding to 999 calls by August 17.
Mr Docherty told the Health Service Journal (HSJ) the number of people waiting in ambulances for 24 hours before hospital admissions is increasing. He also said serious incidents have quadrupled in the past year as delays affect resources.
In the interview, he expressed concerns over how NHS England and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are handling the increasing desperate situation.
“Around August 17 is the day I think it will all fail. I’ve been asked how I can be so specific, but that date is when a third of our resource (will be) lost to delays, and that will mean we just can’t respond
“Mathematically it will be a bit like a Titanic moment. It will be a mathematical (certainty) that this thing is sinking, and it will be pretty much beyond the tipping point by then."
He added: “It would make me the happiest person in the world if everyone in the system proves to me that actually the ambulance service in the West Midlands isn’t going to fail on August 17, and I’ve got it completely wrong.”
Mr Docherty said the large number of medically fit patients in hospital is “criminal ... when I’ve got teenagers dying on the street from things that are completely reversible".
Official figures reported by The Telegraph showed 62% of patients in England considered fit to leave remained on wards as of April 30.
The risk rating for handover delays at West Midlands Ambulance Service was raised to 25 in October, the highest in its history.
Mr Docherty said: “The 25 reflects that patients are dying every day that shouldn’t be dying every day. Their deaths are entirely predictable, and of a scale that means we need to be taking this really seriously.”
“All of the issues that we’re building for the future are huge. And I don’t know why the CQC are not all over this, I don’t know why NHS England is not all over this.”
An NHS spokesman told The Telegraph : “The NHS has been working hard to reduce ambulance delays and £150 million of additional system funding has been allocated for ambulance service pressures in 2022-23. There is no doubt the NHS still faces pressures, and the latest figures are another reminder of the crucial importance of community and social care, in helping people in hospital leave when they are fit to do so, not just because it is better for them but because it helps free up precious NHS bed space.”
