Full Story in Manchester Evening News 23 January 2018
The ‘shambolic’ state of the North West Ambulance Service was described in stark detail in parliament.
Patients’ lives are being put at risk ’on a daily basis’ because of a ‘52 weeks of the year crisis’ in the service, Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd said in a debate.
He told the House of Commons that figures he had obtained showed how:
- One in four ambulances attending the most serious incidents do not have a paramedic on board.
- The average call-out time for the most serious incidents is 11 minutes, compared to a target of eight minutes, while the average call-out time for incidents classified in the next most serious category is 44 minutes, compared to a target of 18 minutes.
- Over the last six years the number of incidents classified as most serious has increased by 50 per cent, but in the same time the number of paramedics has increased by just 16pc.