Row as police forced to drive patients to A&E

Who’d have thought that those waiting at A&E this winter might be considered the lucky ones? At least they have somehow made it safely to hospital.

As the A&E crisis deepens, Channel 4 News has learned of another worrying trend: patients being rushed to hospital not by paramedics, but by police officers.

In the north east the situation has become so desperate that the area’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Vera Baird, has resorted to publicly censuring the ambulance service over the burden it is placing on the police force.

Figures seen exclusively by Channel 4 News reveal that in the three months between October and December 2014, police officers transported 227 patients to hospital because no ambulance was available.

“Despite our repeated and constant dialogue with the North East Ambulance Service to highlight such instances the situation has not improved and no solutions are being offered,” said Mrs Baird.

“It also means that officers are tied up with patients, often for significant periods of time, making them unable to respond to other incidents requiring a police presence.”

Northumbria police is now so concerned it has taken to recording each instance in which it deals with a medical emergency in lieu of an ambulance. A picture emerges of a service which is hopelessly stretched.

In one case, officers waited for an hour with a 76-year-old woman who had started to lose consciousness. Police had given her oxygen but when that began to run low, and with still no sign of an ambulance, officers decided they could wait no longer and rushed the woman to hospital in the back of their police car.

Yvonne Ormston, chief executive of the North East Ambulance Service, said they were under “pressure” and the frequency of these cases were something they were “hoping to reduce”. Ms Ormston said the solution was for all public services to “work even more closely together”.

Across the country, the scale of the problem has not yet been established. Northumbria is thought to be the first force to record the data.

But where it does happen, the outcome isn’t always favourable.

The family of Joseph McIntosh are in the unenviable position of wondering whether he might have been saved had an ambulance arrived sooner. He was found by police at his home in Huyton, Merseyside, in August, unable to speak or move.

Over the next hour and a half, officers contacted the ambulance control room seven times. But having grown frustrated with the lack of response, they fashioned a makeshift stretcher from a window blind and took him to hospital themselves.

Mr McIntosh, 56, had suffered a stroke and later died in hospital. “All his dignity was taken away,” his sister, Marie Smith, told me.

“All his dignity was taken away,” his sister, Marie Smith, told me.

“It was like he was a rag doll. He was my only brother, left lying there as if he was disregarded. I can’t see anything else that would be more of an emergency than what he was, he was fighting for his breath.”

Derek Cartwright, director of operations of North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said paramedics always strive to reach patients in a “timely manner”.

He added: “Unfortunately, there have been occasions where police officers have been waiting with a patient until an ambulance has arrived or have taken a patient to hospital,” he said.

“To help combat this, we have been working with police forces throughout the North West and have recently placed some of our clinicians in police control centres.

“As this has been very beneficial, we have been looking at continuing and developing this further to allow the police to contact our clinicians if they are the first on scene to an incident where a patient requires medical assistance or the police have any medical concerns.”

No Ambulance?

The following examples from Northumbria Police show where officers transported people to hospital between October-December 2014

1. 10 November – Sunderland

Elderly man collapsed with a head injury at 16.50 — by 19.10 ambulance still not arrived and police transported the man to hospital.

2. 28 December 2014 — South Tyneside

At 12.39 police attended call for 76-year-old woman – at 12.43 she became weak, reported no vision, slurred speech and started to lose consciousness. Ambulance contacted — police officers at scene gave oxygen and when it started to run low at 13.38 and no ambulance had arrived officers transported woman to hospital.

3. 17 October 2014 – Gateshead

Police attended accident at 11.57 — driver and passenger of car complaining of back and neck pain. Ambulance arrived at 13.58 to take first patient to hospital and again at 15.27 to remove the second patient to hospital.

4. 27 December 2014 – Northumberland

Ambulance service asked police to gain entry to a house where a 94-year-old woman had fallen. Police attended to find her on the ground complaining of pains to her back and neck and having been sick.

5. 30 December 2014 – Gateshead

At 02.10 police attended a woman who had suffered a head injury following an assault. The advice from the ambulance service was for the woman to get a taxi to hospital — yet due to her dizziness, sickness and loss of vision police advised NEAS that a taxi was not appropriate. When no ambulance arrived police transported her to hospital at 03.36.