Covid: North West Ambulance Service receives help from military

7 January 2022

Coronavirus

Military personnel and ambulance service — Image caption,
Teams will be trained to assist the ambulance service with non-emergency call-outs

A team of 150 military personnel are to join North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) amid increasing pressure on the NHS due to Covid.

Several hospital trusts have declared critical incidents amid staff shortages and an influx of patients.

The soldiers will help medics respond to some non-emergency call-outs, the ambulance service said.

A spokesman said it was under "extreme pressure", with about 25% of workers having to isolate.

Director of operations Ged Blezard said it was "no secret" the NHS and ambulance services had been "under extreme pressure for several months".

The military personnel are to receive training from Tuesday in tasks including driving ambulances and basic life support.

Their focus will be to respond to patients whose need is not urgent, but who often have longer waits when the service is busy.

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How is the NHS in your area coping this winter?

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About the data

Ambulance queues

When patients arrive at hospital by ambulance they should be handed over within 15 minutes. This data shows the proportion of ambulance patients who waited 30 minutes or more, in the week shown. It comes from daily situation reports which are published weekly during the winter in England. As this is fast-turnaround data, the NHS says only minimal validation can be carried out but it is considered fit for purpose.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not publish ambulance queue data.

A&E waits

Patients at A&E should be seen within four hours of arrival. This data shows the proportion of patients attending A&E who waited longer than four hours to be treated, discharged or admitted.

This data is published monthly for England and Wales and weekly for Scotland. Northern Ireland publishes its data quarterly and Winter 2021 is not yet available.

Bed waits and occupancy

If a patient at A&E needs to be admitted, the wait from decision to admit to being given a bed on a ward is recorded in England. The bed waits figure is the proportion of patients admitted via A&E who waited longer than four hours for a ward bed.

In Wales, bed wait data is not published, so the figure shown is the occupancy level in general and acute beds. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not publish bed wait or bed occupancy data.

NHS trusts and boards

Data for England is show by NHS trust, where the trust includes at least one hospital with a Type 1 A&E department. Type 1 means a consultant-led 24 hour A&E service with full resuscitation facilities.

When you enter a postcode for a location in England you will be shown a list of NHS trusts in your area. They will not necessarily be in order of your closest hospital as some trusts have more than one hospital. Data for Wales and Scotland are shown by NHS board.

Comparative data from two years ago is shown where available. However, where trusts have merged there is no like-for-like comparison to show. Bed occupancy data in Wales only goes back to April 2020.

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Earlier this week University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals were among those declaring critical incidents.

Some non-urgent surgery has also been halted at Greater Manchester hospitals, as health bosses said about 15% of their workforce were either ill with Covid or isolating.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped England could "ride out" the latest wave of the virus without further restrictions.

It is not the first time the military has helped NWAS.

In February 2021, soldiers were brought in to cope with a surge in 999 call-outs, which Mr Blezard described as a "very successful partnership".

The Army were deployed to more than 4,600 non-life-threatening incidents, Mr Blezard added.

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Covid: North West Ambulance Service receives help from military

How is the NHS in your area coping this winter?

About the data

About the data

Ambulance queues

A&E waits

Bed waits and occupancy

NHS trusts and boards

Related topics

More on this story

Related internet links