THE number of emergency calls for ambulance services in the county has smashed the 2,000 mark so far month – with New Year’s Eve ahead.

 By midday today (Monday) more than 2,500 calls requiring attention from either an ambulance crew, a fast response paramedic,  community first responder or control room staff offering advice had come in over the month - over 600 of them since December 23.

The most consistent complaints were breathing problems, falls and general illness.

Between December 1 to midday on December 22 the number of calls total topped 1,883.

Both West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) and Wye Valley NHS Trust  had geared up for extreme demand, but present levels are described as unprecedented - already up by over 100 calls on this time last year - with “life-threatening emergency” coming to define 999 response.

For blue light crews 999 means serious and critical illnesses or  patients that needed advanced medical treatment while headed to hospital such as choking, chest pain, stroke, serious blood loss or unconsciousness.

Figures for WMAS as a whole are soaring with a particular surge after the Christmas break.

Demand across the three days of the festive weekend (Friday 26th – Sunday 29th) showed a double digit rise over last year, with some areas hit by staggering spikes in demand.

 Saturday was the service's sixth busiest day ever with demand up 26% in Herefordshire alone.

Sunday saw demand in the county up almost 19%.

Such levels increase pressurte not only on front line responders, but control room staff and the teams that keep vehicles on the road such as mechanics, stores staff, ambulance fleet assistants, hospital liaison staff, non-urgent patient transport and many others who carry out additional roles.

In the last year alone, WMAS received more than 28,500 calls in Herefordshire, a figure representing more than 15 per cent of the county’s population. 

A high percentage of those cases were non-urgent for minor ailments and injuries.

At the furthest extreme of those non-urgent 999 calls were “wart on a finger, “headache after a night out” and “stubbed toe”.

Paramedics and A&E staff accept that, by nature, they will often be a first contact for those who believe they need urgent medical attention.

But alternatives such as the GP out of hours service, Hereford walk-in centre and NHS 111 are being actively promoted.

Context to the current pressures crews are under came in a report put to Herefordshire Council’s health scrutiny committee in June this year.

By then, the Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG) had been told that ambulance response to Red 1 calls, the most urgent, in the county became a “significant issue” over the past year.

HCCG buys and shapes health and care services, WMAS has the contract to provide ambulance services.

The scrutiny report put to council showed that while eight minute target performance picked up in February, it fell to 61 per cent in March, below the 75 per cent expectation.

In real terms, demand on the county’s 999 ambulance service is increasing year-on-year.