‘Significant Pressure’ on Ambulance Service Is Putting Lives At Risk
The North East Ambulance Service are struggling under pressure.
As the party season kicked off with Halloween this weekend, paramedics were under ‘significant pressure’.
Out of the calls they've been taking in recently, more than half are Red 'Critical' Calls.
However Lynn Pyburn from the Contact Centre says many of these life threatening call outs turn out to be minor injuries, or linked to drugs and alcohol.
She said it’s putting the lives of those in a real emergency at risk.
“Strokes, people who look like they’re having a heart attack, people who’ve stopped breathing", she said.
"We want to get there and help those people but unfortunately we have to manage everybody’s expectations.”
“Some people will kind of over-egg their injury or illness and end up higher up that stack.”
“It is incredibly frustrating, particularly when you turn up to cases where they have been waiting for a long time. People who have a genuine emergency and nobody attended in the time frame that they should have been there.”
They’re urging the public to only call 999 in an absolute emergency this bonfire night and in the run up to Christmas.