Despite an increase in demand, the number of ambulance employees is decreasing, according to a Daily Mail investigation.
According to a review of NHS data, the workforce in England had been growing since April 2019 but has now decreased for three consecutive months.
The figure was over 18,000 from October 2017 to March 2018, but it is now at 17,847, the lowest level since September 2017.
The major ambulance crew union said that because of the “unbearable stress and even harassment” they endured while attempting to provide treatment, employees were departing in huge numbers.
Yesterday, an irate citizen stopped a discussion with the Health Secretary to demand to know why the Government had done “nothing” regarding wait times.
Are you going to do something about the ambulances waiting and the people dying? the lady questioned as she passed Moorfields Eye Hospital in central London, where Steve Barclay had just paid a visit.
“You’ve done bugger all,” she said. Even when people have died, you have done nothing. It comes after weeks of horrifying reports of ambulance delays, including instances in which elderly persons waited up to 40 hours for one.
According to a study of GMB members, one-third of ambulance workers had seen situations in which patient deaths were related to delays.
“It’s no surprise ambulance employees are quitting in droves,” the organization’s national officer Rachel Harrison said. “The service totters on the brink of catastrophe.”