Full story in the NHE, 4 January 2018
The East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST) has revealed it was forced to turn to private ambulance services as the number of calls it received on New Year’s Day was more than 50% above normal levels.
The trust had to move to level 4 on the national Resource Escalation Action Plan (REAP) because of the rise in calls, which was 12% higher than the number it received in the same period last year.
On average, EEAST gets around 3,000 calls a day for services, but on 1 January the trust was hit with more than 4,800 calls – adding to the 4,100 that came in the day before.