AMBULANCE chiefs covering Hampshire are spending more than £1 million a month for charities and private firms to attend 999 calls, it has been revealed.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) shelled out £13.6 million to private and voluntary companies to answer its calls in the year ending April 2016 – the highest of any ambulance trust in the country.

The statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act also reveal that the NHS spending on private ambulance 999 calls has soared to £68.7 million – trebling from £22.1 million in 2011/12.

And it comes as it has been revealed that the trust is missing its targets for the most life-threatening calls for the tenth month in a row.

Ambulance chiefs have blamed the increase in emergency calls coupled with a national staff shortage.

NHS England said 999 calls for ambulances rose 4.5 per cent a year.
Unions have attacked “creeping privatisation” and called for more money for staff recruitment.

The ambulance service in England took 861,000 emergency phone calls in March 2016 – which equates to 27,800 a day – compared with 22,400 calls a day in March 2015, a rise of 24 per cent.

Contractors include private firms and charities such as St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross.

SCAS operations director Mark Ainsworth said there was “no alternative”, until trainee paramedics coming through the university system qualified and stressed that the private provider crews are trained to the same standards as NHS crews, providing the same level of response and care at a “comparable cost”.

He said: “Due to a national shortage of paramedics and a year-on-year increase over the last five years in the volume of emergency incidents SCAS is called to, it has been necessary for the trust to employ the services of approved list of private providers in order that we can provide the right level of emergency cover to meet the demands of the local communities we serve.

“Without the private providers we would currently not have enough resources to get to all the patients who need us.”

But he pointed toout that 313 new paramedics within the last 12 months and added: “We continue to actively recruit paramedics both from abroad and within the UK. Over the last two years we have also undertaken extensive internal staff development programmes to increase our frontline clinical workforce from existing staff.”

Alan Lofthouse, Unison lead officer for ambulance workers, accused the Ggovernment of “short-sightedness” in failing to train and recruit enough paramedics – leading to private companies stepping in.

He said short-staffing means many workers leaving the NHS due to “pressure” with many working two or three hours over their 12-hour shifts – including one East of England ambulance service trust (EEAST) colleague working 20 hours driving between Norfolk and London.

He added:  “There has been warnings about the level of demand and 999 calls. They are stretched beyond their ability to cope. We are asking the government to invest in more proper training to bring in a new generation of paramedics.”

The Daily EchoDaily Echo also reported last year that the trust – which serves Hampshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire – could face a £1 million fine by the end of this year because of poor performance.

SOUTH Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) has missed targets for the most life-threatening calls for the tenth month in a row.

They failed to get to thousands of vulnerable patients in the region within times recommended by health chiefs - despite being the second best in the country.

All UK ambulance services are supposed to respond within eight minutes to at least 75% of Red One calls - when someone becomes unresponsive and has a life-threatening condition such as a cardiac arrest - and Red Two calls - when someone suffers a potentially life-threatening condition such as a stroke.

But new figures released by NHS England reveal that during March only 69 per cent of Red One calls and 68 per cent of Red Two calls came within the required time.

This meant that 363 of the 1,173 Red One calls and 5,753 of Red Two calls were missed.

However it is the second best in the country with only Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust meeting the target by making 76.1 per cent of calls.