Ambulance triage is a 'game-changer' - paramedic

Jamie Breen said a triage system introduced in 2021 had been a "game-changer"

"Our peak across the West Midlands area every day is 400 ambulances, the demand will always be high."

Jamie Breen, a West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) paramedic who has been in the role for six years, has told how the introduction of a Clinical Validation Team (CVT) in 2021 has been a "game-changer for the service".

The team calls patients back and where possible speaks to them to determine next steps, which could be advice, referral to a GP, pharmacist, hospital or urgent care team, or sending an ambulance.

Mr Breen was giving BBC Shropshire an inside view of the pressures, challenges and highlights faced by ambulance crews.

He explained how the CVT worked to "see if they can triage them over the phone so they don't have to resource it with an ambulance".

"Patients are getting the right care -and they're getting referred on to specialist services such as specific wards, their GP or district nurses or things like rapid response," he said.

Rob Till, head of integrated urgent care services at WMAS, said the triage service meant life-threatening cases were prioritised and responded to as quickly as possible."

"At the same time, patients whose conditions are less urgent are safely referred to alternative services better suited to their needs," he said.

WMAS receives about 4,000 emergency 999 calls a day and serves a population of about six million people.

The ambulance trust said it clinically triaged 723 patients each day through the CVT last month.