Ambulance Callouts Hit Record High

Highest numbers since records began

Ambulance callouts for life-threatening conditions hit a record high last month (July 2022).

There were a record 85,000 category one calls made, which usually include people with cardiac arrest, heart attacks, and people who aren’t breathing.

This was up 33% up from the previous month of June, and the highest since 2010, when records began.

Continuing immense pressure on the NHS

Experts suggest that the likely cause was the continuing immense pressure on the health service.

These callouts were happening as nearly 30,000 people waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to a hospital.

Richard Murray, the chief executive of independent thinktank The Kings Fund, has said the pressure is being felt across the whole of the health service.

He added: “At the end of July, 13,014 people were still in hospital beds despite being medically fit to be discharged.”

Lack of social care support

Murray explained that the reason for people not being discharged is the lack of social care support.

He went on to say that the pressure the NHS faces cannot be solved without first solving the problems in the UK’s social care sector.

The latest figures suggest that around one in six patients in UK hospitals are facing delays in being discharged despite being well enough to leave.

An average of 12,900 patients were spending more time in hospital than necessary, which is an 11% increase from the previous month of June.

This has resulted in patients who need hospital treatment not getting the care they require because there aren’t enough beds available.

Reduction in people waiting for treatment

Though patients are waiting for hospital treatment, there has been a reduction in the number of people waiting for more than 18 months.

The number of people waiting stood at nearly 76,000 in January and has now been reduced to almost 54,000.

This comes at a time when people waiting more than two years for routine operations has also fallen by 22,500 from the start of the year. Fewer than 200 people are now waiting.

Turning a corner in tackling Covid's impact

6.7 million are still waiting for hospital treatment, but there does seem to be a silver lining emerging in some places.

Professor Sir Stephen Powys, the NHS national medical director, said: "While the total backlog will continue to increase for some time, by managing to virtually eliminate two-year waits we are turning a corner in tackling Covid's impact on elective care."

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