Matter of life or death

EVERY one of us should be grateful for the skill and professionalism of the ambulance crews who dedicate themselves to saving lives.

But gravely ill patients and emergency personnel alike are being let down by a 999 system that is simply not up to scratch.

scandalously, huge numbers of the sick wait longer to get through to a call handler than the seven minutes it should take for an ambulance to actually reach them.

it is hard to imagine the fear gripping those people – often elderly – who must sit tight with no sign of help. When ambulances are required, every second counts.

of course, nhs trusts are overstretched, taking record volumes of 999 calls. The increase is driven by a growing and ageing population. And the crisis is exacerbated by the difficulty patients face seeing a GP.

if their condition deteriorates, many end up turning to ambulances, inevitably placing the service under further strain.

The nhs should spend more of the record sums it has received in recent years on call handlers, instead of on pointless diversity managers. Failure to do so is, for too many patients, literally a matter of life and death.