Seriously ill patients on Merseyside are being left in danger by extended waiting times for ambulances, shocking new statistics have revealed.
The Government’s target is that 75% of all of life-threatened callers are reached within eight minutes.
However, figures from the North West Ambulance Service, have revealed that 37 per cent of the most seriously ill patients are not seen within that time.
That figure represents a nine per cent rise 2012 when 28% per cent of emergency calls took more than eight minutes.
Meanwhile, further figures from Care Quality Commission have highlighted a 16% per cent shortfall in the number of paramedics that NWAS needs to operate at full capacity.
“These disgraceful figures clearly show Tory tactics of underfunding and privatising the NHS are putting lives in danger,” said Paul McCarthy, Regional Secretary GMB North West.
“GMB members put their heart and soul into the life-saving work they do for our health service.”
“But the conservatives are cutting their feet out from under them – and the result is dying patients are left with a desperately long wait for emergency care.”
“Not every emergency call gets a qualified paramedic crew because there is a shortage of paramedics within North West Ambulance Service – and we question why this shortage has been allowed to grow to 16% when the GMB have been saying to the NWAS Directors for the past five years, that more staff both internally and externally need to be trained up.”