If you have ever had to call an ambulance for a family member, you will recall the wave of grateful relief you felt when it arrived and the paramedics strode in, skilled, confident and disarmingly upbeat. At that moment, you might not have known whether your loved one would be OK, but you did believe they would receive world-class care. Their chances were now the best they could be – and you dialled 999 only a few minutes ago.
At least, that is how it used to go. But we live in a country where that lifebelt is no longer within reach. If you have called 999 in the past couple of years, you have played a lethal lottery, captured vividly by the Dispatches investigation Undercover Ambulance: NHS in Chaos.
