THE county’s frontline ambulance and paramedic crews have responded to 1,398 calls  since the start of the month with little sign of demand easing.

That figure stands for the period December 1-16 and is up 136 – or over eight calls a day – on the same period last year.

Demands levels have been described as unprecedented.

The rise directly defies warnings from West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) for time wasters to watch the clock.

With crews under pressure  even minutes spent on calls to minor ailments put lives at risk.

Wye Valley NHS Trust had geared up for unrelenting – if not unprecedented – demand  over Christmas-New Year to the extent that “life-threatening emergency” has come to define 999 response.

In that definition, the trust is backed by WMAS.

For crews on the road 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.

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 were 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.