With an unprecedented increase in the demand for ambulances, a pilot will start next month in the South West and in London to give dispatchers two more minutes to decide whether a crew should be sent in response to a 999 call.
It is hoped the increase from one to three minutes decision-making time will mean that fewer ambulances will be sent to cases that turn out to be non-urgent. NHS England estimates that less than ten per cent of 999 call-outs are eventually found to be for life-threatening cases.
The pilot will also move a few more cases into the top – or Red 1 – category for calls.
It is not understood why ambulance crews are suddenly under such pressure. Some blame the government’s NHS 111 telephone service. Non-medical staff at NHS 111 call-centres are thought liable to opt for an ambulance call-out rather than risk miss-diagnosing a patient.
The changes for this trial period are far less than the substantial changes signalled in a leaked memo last month and which caused a minor political row. Those changes would have involved reducing the number of conditions considered as Red 2 – the second most urgent category.
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