Rise in NHS spend on private ambulances, BBC reports

According to research by the BBC, NHS spending on private ambulances for 999 calls in England has trebled in the last four years.

The investigation was led by a series of Freedom of Information requests (FoI), and found that ambulance trusts paid private companies and voluntary organisations £68.7 million to attend emergency calls in 2015-16, compared to £22 million in 2011-12.

The data found that the ambulance service in England took 861,000 emergency phone calls in March 2016, equating to 27,800 per day, compared to 22,400 emergency calls per day for the same period the previous year.

The FoIs revealed that of the 11 ambulance trusts, South Central spent the most; 13.6 million in the year to April 2016, with London spending £11.9 million.

Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics, said: "In the long term, we should not be using private providers in the way we are, but we do need to provide a safe and effective service to the public. We should employ more people, training and supporting them effectively and providing that as part of the NHS."

Alan Lofthouse, Unison lead officer for ambulance workers, said: "It is creeping privatisation, something we are very concerned about. In the short term people need an ambulance. But in the long term they can not be part of a fully-funded system because there is a profit being made by private companies."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "We have employed 2,000 more paramedics since 2010 and will be training an extra 1,900 over the next five years."