Family doctors say hard-pressed paramedics prioritise other cases as practices are seen as ‘places of safety’
Patients experiencing life-threatening emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes or major breathing problems are becoming trapped for many hours in GP surgeries, unable to get to hospital, because ambulances are taking so long to turn up after their practice rings 999.
GP leaders say growing numbers of very unwell patients are getting caught up in such situations after attending for an appointment. They blame surgeries being seen as “places of safety” by hard-pressed ambulance services, which take longer to send paramedics there because they are so busy dealing with other emergencies and assume GPs and nurses are looking after the patient.
A patient with a fractured hip who waited nine hours in the surgery for an ambulance – before the ambulance service sent a taxi instead at 9pm saying “no ambulance available”.
A patient with chest pains who missed the chance to have stents fitted because, despite them and their GP dialling 999, no ambulance came to take them to hospital.
A patient with acute heart failure and atrial fibrillation who had to be kept on oxygen in their surgery for more than four hours before an ambulance arrived.
