Jump to content

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.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 21 March 2023

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.


Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...