Police cars double as ambulances to ferry patients to A&E

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Thousands of patients are being taken to A&E in police cars because ambulances are failing to show up.

One force has revealed how last year officers transported almost 1,000 patients to hospital.

Police admit they are ‘extremely worried’ about the practice, which is becoming more frequent as 999 crews struggle to cope with demand.

Most officers have only very basic first aid training and in one case have had to create makeshift stretchers out of window blinds.

Figures obtained from a Freedom of Information request to London’s Metropolitan Police Force showed that officers took patients to hospital 931 times in the 12 months leading up to January this year.

There are no figures for the UK’s other 38 forces, but officers elsewhere say they are experiencing similar problems.........

The Fire Brigades Union has also warned that patients are being put at risk because firemen with only basic first aid training – at most a four-day training course – were being left to deal with the most seriously ill patients.

In one case this year an elderly lady is feared to have died because she was left in the hands of fire crews for nearly 40 minutes while an ambulance crew was delayed.

The FBU – which represents 44,000 firefighters – said it was ‘irresponsible and dangerous’ to put untrained firefighters in the position of attending incidents to assist ambulances.

Bosses at the Department of Health said that most ambulances responding to life-threatening cases got to the scene in under eight minutes.