Ambulances out of action as crews put wrong fuel in
Mistakes at petrol stations taking vehicles out of use for weeks at a time and putting lives at risk
LIVES are being put at risk because ambulances are being put out of action by crews accidentally filling their vehicles with the wrong fuel, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. An investigation reveals there have been at least 769 incidents of “misfuelling” across the UK since 2012, with affected ambulances out of action for days and in some cases weeks at a time.
The data, obtained through Freedom of Information requests, emerge as ambulance trusts face mounting pressure due to the crisis in A&E departments and their own staffing shortages.
South East Coast Ambulance Service, which at 156 incidents was the worst offending trust, has spent at least £51,555 repairing misfuelled ambu- lances since 2012, a sum which could have employed two full-time paramedics for a year. The largest individual cost was £14,310 after an engine was so badly damaged it had to be replaced. The trust said it had steadily lowered its rate of misfuelling due to increasingly using NHS-owned “bunkering” hubs, rather than normal roadside petrol stations.
However, documents from the London Ambulance Service, which suffered 69 incidents over the last two years, indicate that misfuelling can also take place at NHS hubs. An ambulance that is misfuelled – typically where petrol is put into a diesel engine – first needs to be recovered, then have its engine drained. Often the fuel filter will then need to be replaced and the vehicle undergo road tests before it is allowed back into service.
The data from London shows its 69 misfuelled ambulances were out of action for a total of 1,902 hours, or 27.5 hours per ambulance.
If the same average is applied across all 769 known incidents, it means the UK has lost at least 881 days of operational ambulance time since the start of 2012.
Other trusts with high misfuelling rates include Yorkshire, which had 123 incidents costing the taxpayer more than £20,000, and North West Ambulance Service, which had 124 incidents costing £30,600.
Scottish Ambulance Service said it had suffered 64 incidents at a total cost of £8,393, while Wales had 58, costing £17,886.
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, West Midlands and East of England refused to disclose their rates.
A spokesman for South East Coast Ambulance Service said: “As a trust we have implemented control measures to reduce the risk of these events occurring by ensuring all our vehicles have a label fitted to the vehicle fuel flap indicating to staff the correct grade of fuel to be used.
“We have also trialled audible fuel alerts and various misfuel devices but as a trust we have seen a drop in these type of events over the last three years.”