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Thousands of English NHS 999 calls answered in Wales
Thousands of 999 calls are being transferred to the Welsh Ambulance Service because they are taking more than five minutes to answer in England, HSJ can reveal.
More than 50,000 calls – 1.2% of all made – were sent to a different ambulance service than the one intended between October and the middle of February, under a new system of routing unanswered calls was introduced.
It automatically diverts calls which have not been answered after five minutes, rerouting them to services with current capacity, while a BT operator remains on the line until the call is answered.
The Welsh Ambulance Service explained it records details from the transferred caller, prioritises the response level and provides lifesaving instructions if required, including having access to a national database of defibrillators.
However, it is unable to despatch ambulances outside its area and does not provide clinical assessment. Instead the details are transferred electronically into the “home” trust’s computer-aided despatch system.
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Source: HSJ, 21 March 2023