Tag Archives: humanitarian aid

To quote Granny Weatherwax, I aten’t dead, merely returned from some family time. And so, to pick up where I left off…

• Uber ambulance: 2.7 million did not take an ambulance to A&E last year – up 340,000 on 2019
• Jardine welcomes children’s evacuation

Uber ambulance: 2.7 million did not take an ambulance to A&E last year – up 340,000 on 2019

There were at least 2.7 million attendances at A&E where someone did not use an ambulance to get there, with over a quarter-of-a-million in need of very urgent medical attention opting not to use one, Liberal Democrat Freedom of Information requests (FOIs) have revealed.

It has led to the party saying that there is an “Uber ambulance crisis” and that the Government should create a new £50 million-a-year emergency fund to allow ambulance trusts to reverse closures of community ambulance stations, as well as launching a campaign to retain, recruit and train paramedics and other ambulance staff.

The FOIs found that the number of A&E attendances from not arriving in an ambulance had risen by 14% since 2019, from 2.36 million to 2.7 million. Only 30 of the 144 NHS Trusts responded with full data so these figures are likely to be far higher in reality.

The data also revealed the severity of injury of those attending, which is broken down into five codes. Code 1 is those in need of immediate medical attention including those in need of immediate resuscitation. There were 10,600 Code 1 incidents last year, up by 1,600 on 2023’s figure of 9,000. Code 2 represents those in need of very urgent medical attention. Across 2024 there were 256,000 attendances of this type with a massive spike of 55% on 2019’s figure of 165,000.

The Trust that saw the largest rise in non-ambulance A&E attendances was Sandwell and West Birmingham, where there was a 320% rise since 2019 with the figures jumping from 3,900 to 16,500 last year. Mid and South Essex has the highest number of attendances through not arriving in an ambulance with 322,000 last year, up on 2019’s figure of 263,000.