The Welsh Ambulance Service has declared a “critical incident” because of significantly increased demand across the 999 service and extensive hospital handover delays. The incident was declared at around 7.45pm on Monday, December 30.
Demand for the 999 service is currently very high, with more than 340 calls waiting to be answered at the time the critical incident was declared. In addition, more than half of the Trust’s ambulance vehicles were stuck waiting to hand over patients outside hospitals. Join our WhatsApp news community here for the latest breaking news. You will receive updates from us daily.
As a result, some patients have waited, and continue to wait, many hours for an ambulance, while it is also taking longer to answer calls, according to the service. Stephen Sheldon, head of the service, said: “It is very rare that we declare a critical incident, but with significant demand on our service and more than 90 ambulances waiting to hand over patients outside of hospital, our ability to help patients has been impacted.
“Regrettably, this means that some patients will wait longer for an ambulance to arrive and for their calls to be answered. For that, we are very sorry because this is not the level of service we want to provide. We understand that this is frustrating for patients, but can assure them that we are doing everything we can to relieve the pressure on our service. The public can help by only calling 999 in the event of a life-threatening emergency – that’s a cardiac arrest, chest pain or breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness, choking, or catastrophic bleeding.
“If it’s not a life-threatening emergency, then it’s important you use one of the many alternatives to 999, starting with the symptom checkers on our NHS 111 Wales website as well as your GP, pharmacist, and Minor Injuries Unit. We must protect our precious resources for those who need them the most.
“Our staff and volunteers are doing a brilliant job under difficult circumstances, and we cannot thank them enough for their hard work during these very challenging times across the health service.”
The incident comes as a number of health boards in Wales have reintroduced compulsory face mask wearing as they deal with a so called ‘quad-demic’ of illnesses – including flu, norovirus, RSV and Covid.