London Ambulance Service pilots scheme to keep patients out of A&E

An experimental operation to put more paramedics on the ground in London and draft in more ambulance control room staff aims to cut the number of patients going to A&E.

The London Ambulance Service (LAS) has been working with an NHS Trust and the number of patients taken to emergency departments has dropped.

Dr Malik Ramadan, of the Royal London Hospital, said: "If you're well and you don't need to be in hospital, the last place you want to be is in the emergency department. You'll sit there for hours.

"And from a purely selfish point of view you're possibly distracting me from someone who is ill."