People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed.

Denis Campbell www.theguardian.com 

Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England.

In addition, about 12,000 of the 160,000 are suffering “severe harm” such as a permanent setback to their health. These include people with life-threatening health emergencies such as chest pains, sepsis, heart problems, epilepsy and Covid-19 because growing numbers of paramedics are having to wait increasingly long times to hand over a patient to A&E staff.

Ambulance logjams outside hospitals have become a major problem in the NHS in recent years as A&E staff have struggled to find beds for patients they have decided to admit because the hospital has run out of beds as a result of Covid-19, their inability to discharge patients who are medically fit to leave and the record demand for care.

That has left A&E personnel having to limit the number of patients who can be in their unit at one time, which leads to sometimes long queues of ambulances outside. The problem has become much more serious in recent months as all NHS services have seen unprecedented demand for care.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats said the “staggering” extent of damage to patients’ health underlined the risks posed by the deepening crisis facing NHS ambulance services.

The report, seen by the Guardian, has been drawn up by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and is based on official NHS figures, which until now were secret. AACE represents the chief executives of England’s 10 regional ambulance services, all of which have had to declare an alert in recent months after being faced with unprecedented demands for help.

It concludes that: “When very sick patients arrive at hospital and then have to wait an excessive time for handover to emergency department clinicians to receive assessment and definitive care, it is entirely predictable and almost inevitable that some level of harm will arise.

“This may take the form of a deteriorating medical or physical condition, or distress and anxiety, potentially affecting the outcome for patients and definitely creating a poor patient experience.”

It does not say how many patients a year die because so many ambulances are stuck at hospitals. But it adds: “We know that some patients have sadly died whilst waiting outside ED [emergency departments], or shortly after eventual admission to ED following a wait. Others have died while waiting for an ambulance response in the community.

“Regardless of whether a death may have been an inevitable outcome, this is not the level of care or experience we would wish for anyone in their last moments. Any form or level of harm is not acceptable.”

AACE studied all handover delays lasting more than an hour that occurred across the 10 ambulance trusts on 4 January, and the harm resulting. It used the data to estimate how many patients a year suffer a deterioration in their health, or need much more invasive treatment such as surgery, as a direct result of waiting a long time to be treated by doctors and nurses.

It concluded that: “If these results from 4 January 2021, which was not an atypical day, are extrapolated across all handover delays that occur every day, the cases of potential harm could be as high as 160,000 patients affected a year.

“Of those, approximately 12,000 patients could potentially experience severe harm as a result of delayed handovers.”

Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, said: “These staggering figures will shock people to their core. These are absolutely devastating findings, which reveal that there is a huge toll of harm and severe harm, including tragically patient deaths, as a direct result of the colossal number of ambulance handover delays we’re now seeing.”

Ambulances are meant to hand patients over to A&E staff within 15 minutes, with none waiting more than half an hour. However, queues of as many as 15 ambulances at a time have been building up outside hospitals in recent years because hard-pressed staff have been too busy to accept them.

Last month the West Midlands ambulance service admitted publicly that handover delays were causing “catastrophic” harm to patients. Mark Docherty, its nursing director, said that despite its best efforts “we know patients are coming to harm” and that some patients “are dying before we get to them”.

Pressure on its ambulances forced the service to raise the risk assessment of harm to patients from level 20 to level 25 – the highest ever. “The definition of 25 is that harm is almost certain – and it’s going to be catastrophic. I think we’re now at that place,” Docherty added.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “This is a devastating report. The scale of harm and severe harm being done to patients is a scandal.

“Ministers should be ashamed that colossal numbers of patients – thanks to years of Tory NHS neglect – are languishing in ambulances waiting for vital life-saving care at risk of, and indeed suffering, serious harm, permanent disability or loss of life.”

Hospitals are under such pressure that about 190,000 handovers a month – around half the total – now take longer than they should, AACE’s report said. Paramedics have been warning that patients whose health has collapsed in their home or another setting have also been put at risk because being trapped outside A&Es means they are not available to respond quickly to 999 calls.

A series of recent incidents illustrate the crisis confronting ambulance services:

• A patient died after spending about an hour in an ambulance outside Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge on 24 October. The patient had suffered a cardiac arrest. The hospital said the patient had “remained in the ambulance due to significant pressures on A&E”.
• John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, last week apologised for the “agony” endured by the family of Richard Brown, who died on the stairs outside his flat in Glasgow after waiting five hours for an ambulance
• A patient died of a cardiac arrest in Worcestershire royal hospital in Worcester on 4 October after waiting five hours in an ambulance outside. Paramedics warned A&E staff the patient was having trouble breathing but the patient died despite being rushed into the resuscitation room.
• A woman died in eastern England last month after waiting an hour for an ambulance crew to reach her on what should have been a seven-minute response. No crews were available in the 50 miles between Cromer and Waveney in Norfolk, so an ambulance from Ipswich in Suffolk had to answer the 999 call.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting ambulance crews who work tirelessly responding to emergencies every day. NHS England and Improvement has given ambulance trusts an extra £55m to boost staff numbers for winter, helping them to bolster capacity in control rooms and on the frontline.

“We are supporting the NHS to meet the unprecedented pressures it is facing, with record investment this year including an extra £5.4bn over the next six months to support its response to Covid-19 and £36bn for health and care over the next three years.”

Housebuilders may be “gaming the system” to avoid fire safety checks put in place after the Grenfell Tower fire, London Fire Brigade (LFB) has warned.

www.bbc.co.uk

Deputy Commissioner Paul Jennings said there are “hundreds if not thousands” of new buildings which may be “deliberately” designed to avoid rules.

They include blocks designed to be lower than an 18m (59ft) limit to be considered a high-rise building.

The building safety minister branded efforts to “cut corners” as “shocking”.

The Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 led to the deaths of 72 people.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Mr Jennings, said: “We have got examples where we think people are deliberately designing and building their buildings below that 18 metre, six floor threshold, because they know if they reach that threshold they would have to put advanced and more intricate fire safety measures in.”

Mr Jennings described these new buildings in the capital as examples of “gaming the system”.

When asked how many new buildings in London were being constructed to avoid the rules, he said it was likely “hundreds, if not thousands”.

“We are seeing around 60% of the building consultations that come into the fire engineering team and others are ones where we are going backwards,” he said.

Two weeks ago, LFB said all but three of the recommendations made by the Grenfell Tower Inquiry will be in place by 2022.

On Monday, Michael Gove told the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee: “We collectively – the department, some in local government, others in the private sector – failed people at Grenfell and there are people who were and still are in buildings where there is a significant risk.”

“The government has refused to confirm or deny reports that it will finally cancel plans for the HS2 link to Leeds this week, and instead fund a hodgepodge of disparate projects which favour Conservative constituencies and leave mysterious gaps in the rail network.”

www.theguardian.com 

Government to finally drop plan for HS2 link to Leeds – reports

MPs are keeping secret their employment agreements for second jobs worth up to £100,000 annually after quietly changing the rules on disclosure.

Jon Ungoed-Thomas www.theguardian.com 

The public had been entitled to inspect MPs’ contractual arrangements linked to their work in parliament. But the rules requiring MPs to deposit the agreements with the office of the parliamentary commissioner for standards were scrapped by parliament in 2015.

Campaigners are now calling for an urgent change in parliament’s code of conduct to force disclosure of the work involved in MPs’ advisory roles.

Boris Johnson also faces calls for a review of MPs’ outside interests and a ban on consultancies linked to politics after a public backlash over the extra earnings of many politicians.

An analysis of the MPs’ register has revealed more than a quarter of Tory MPs have second jobs, worth more than £4m a year. The interests they represent include the gambling industry, global investments firms and the energy sector.

Tom Brake, director of Unlock Democracy, a not-for-profit group which campaigns for democratic reforms, said new rules should be introduced urgently to require the publication of MPs’ employment agreements linked to their political activity. He said: “MPs should make this information available on a voluntary basis with immediate effect. It would help clear the air.”

Under a previous guide to the code of conduct, published in 2012, MPs were required to deposit any employment agreement connected to their work as an MP for public inspection. A new code, approved by the House of Commons, in March 2015 removed the obligation.

The office of the parliamentary commissioner for standards said last week that no MPs had deposited contractual agreements in the last six years. One official said: “The only such agreements we still hold are historical ones dating from the period before the 2015 election, and none of them are live contracts as the employment has ended.”

The row over the government U-turn on proposals to overhaul the House of Commons’ disciplinary system has focused public attention on MPs’ second jobs.

Former Conservative transport secretary Chris Grayling is one of the best-paid MPs, with a £100,000-a-year advisory role with Hutchison Ports Europe, which operates the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich and has its parent company in the Cayman Islands. He is paid about £270 an hour. Grayling was given the go-ahead for the role by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, but said he would not do work in areas where he may have “gleaned specific information” in his ministerial job.

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, announced in March that Felixstowe and Harwich would be given freeport status, where normal tax and customs rules do not apply.

Former minister Andrew Percy, the Tory MP for Brigg and Goole, has disclosed in the MPs’ register of interest a signing-on bonus of £7,000 for the Canadian-based government relations firm Maple Leaf Strategies, which he worked for until last April. Percy also said he would receive commissions on any business referrals.

Percy also discloses in the latest MPs’ register that he has been paid £500 an hour for six hours’ work a month for Iogen Corporation (Canada), a world leader in the development of cellulosic ethanol, a renewable transport fuel. Percy has previously campaigned in parliament for the national rollout of E10 fuel, which contains 10% ethanol. He has also been a member of the all-party parliamentary group for British Bioethanol. He did not respond to a request for comment on his outside interests last week.

A report by the committee on standards in public life in July 2018 said the MPs’ code of conduct and guide to the rules should be changed to read: “MPs should not accept any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant.” The recommendation was not adopted by the Commons.

Speaking at an event at University College London last week, Lord Evans, chair of the committee on standards in public life, said the controversy over MPs’ second jobs showed the public’s concern on conduct in public office. He said: “Ethical standards are important for making democracy work. The public does care about this.”

goodlawproject.org

The UK may be the only democracy in the world without a written constitution – a ‘higher’ law or code to which all others must conform.

Until now, we haven’t seen the need for binding rules. We’ve relied on self-restraint. We’ve trusted politicians to behave themselves. We’ve assumed that only ‘good chaps’ – as Lord Hennessy memorably put it – will rise to high office. And those good chaps won’t need to be told how to behave. Being good chaps, they will know what the rules are and they will obey them.

But what happens if the people running the show aren’t good chaps?

What you get is what we have. Bullying of regulators. Stacking of boards. Challenges to the independence of the media. Criminalising civil protest. Restricting the right to vote. Attacking the independence of MPs. Challenging the judiciary, curtailing its powers and reversing its decisions. Abandoning the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. There are well-sourced rumours of political interference in operational policing decisions. And, let us not forget, we have a Prime Minister who unlawfully suspended Parliament.

All of this is before we start on the tidal wave of sleaze engulfing the Government: VIP lanes for the politically connected; vast payments to politically connected middle-men; procurement fraud going uninvestigated; failures to declare conflicts of interest by MPs; and the misleading of Parliament by the Prime Minister.

Sitting above all of this is a set of problems, arising not so much from how some politicians behave but from how the world now is. Our politics feels more divided. We seem to have less in common, and the idea we all want the same things for the country feels less secure.

The truth is, the world our rules were made for no longer exists.

What does this mean for the idea that Parliament is supreme – has absolute power? Is this conception of democracy consistent with a first-past-the-post system that can, and often does, give unconstrained power to a Government with a minority of the popular vote? And if MPs are coerced into voting with the Government, who gets to play the constitutional trump card of Parliamentary supremacy? MPs accountable to voters, or the Executive?

At the heart of all of this is a simple truth: you don’t need a constitution to protect you against good chaps because they’re good chaps, and a constitution that can’t protect you against bad chaps is no constitution at all.

Meanwhile, what remains withers and weakens. What is left is less and less able to command public confidence. Trust in politics – and ultimately in democracy – is the victim.

A responsible Government would respond with a process for a new British Bill of Rights. A smart Opposition would demand one.

Good Law Project only exists thanks to donations from ordinary people across the UK. If you’re in a position to support our work, you can do so here. 

Rachel Stevenson www.theguardian.com 

This feature article describes, at some length, the parlous state of the “affordable” housing market in Cornwall. People are being evicted because their landlord either wants to turn their property into a holiday let or because they want to sell up because property prices are so high. There is no accommodation – and the situation is getting worse because of benefit cuts and rising energy bills. 

Simon Jupp recently asked Boris Johnson, in a parliamentary question, to meet him and colleagues across the South West to discuss this growing crisis.

Boris’ answer suggested that having legislated to introduce higher rates of stamp duty on second homes the problem had been solved.

No Boris – think again or are these problems below your pay grade?

See what Cornwall Council portfolio holder for housing needs:

Extract:

Olly Monk, Cornwall Council portfolio holder for housing, says the council is doing all it can to end the housing crisis. “We’ve got an immediate issue with families who are being threatened with homelessness. It must be absolutely terrifying for them,” he said.

The council is buying caravan parks as well as developments of modular homes that can be erected quickly. It is also buying new-build houses straight from developers, announcing last week the purchase of 130 new homes, 100 of which would otherwise have gone on the open market. “This shows our commitment to do whatever is necessary to provide homes that people in our communities can afford,” said Monk.

“We are building and buying up as much social housing as we can. But we need Westminster to give us more powers. We want every property’s primary use to be residential, and if there is any deviation from that, then the owners have to apply to us for permission. We want to close the loophole that allows second homes that are holiday lets to not pay rates. And we want the power to put a surcharge on council tax for second homes or holiday lets.”

He also wants landlords and estate agents to “think twice”. “They should look at their conscience, and look at their communities, and think about where their sons and daughters are going to live in the future.”

www.midweekherald.co.uk

I am tempted to agree with Greta Thunberg that COP-26 was all ‘blah blah blah’.

When Boris Johnson flew back to London from Glasgow instead of taking the train, it was difficult to take his climate promises seriously.

There were certainly important agreements on methane and deforestation, and significant pledges by some leaders. But overall it seemed there was too little, too late, to address the disaster we threaten to hand on to our grandchildren. 

Johnson apparently flew back to plot, with former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, how to save their mutual friend, the corrupt Conservative MP Owen Paterson, who was notorious for climate-change denial when he was environment secretary.

It was embarrassing to see Neil Parish MP voting for the brazen – and soon to be abandoned – device which Johnson concocted to get Paterson off the hook, while Simon Jupp MP could only abstain. 

It wasn’t as though Parish and Jupp didn’t know that Johnson might be stitching them up. Only ten days earlier, they had both allowed themselves to be used as lobby-fodder in a move to protect the privatised water companies who are dumping sewage in our waterways, including across East Devon, and threatening the safety of our beaches. They have now meekly supported a ‘compromise’ which still fails to commit the companies to a specific timetable for ending this. 

The extent of Conservative corruption is shocking. As Paul Arnott has reminded us, in East Devon we had advance warning – councillor Graham Brown had to resign in 2013 after being caught offering planning permission for cash; it was clear that he couldn’t have done it without accomplices but they were never caught. But now it goes right to the top. Johnson wanted to get rid of the Commissioner for Standards because she has had to investigate him more than any other MP.   

It is not just that this country is now sinking to a level which was previously unimaginable. Corruption also has dire effects on the delivery of services. Billions were squandered on pandemic contracts given to Tory mates through a special fast lane, some of them producing wholly useless PPE.

Dido Harding, a Tory peer, was made head of Test and Trace, one of the most inefficient and wasteful of all the new bodies. Her appointment is the subject of a legal challenge by the Good Law Project, whose director Jolyon Maugham QC argues: “For ministers or special advisers to choose their friends or close associates for these key roles is to exclude those who are more able, or better value. And ultimately it is the public interest that suffers.”

But who is the Government’s anti-corruption champion? Step forward Somerset MP John Penrose, Harding’s husband. 

Only last month we discovered that the Immensa testing laboratory, which was not properly accredited, had issued tens of thousands of fast negatives for PCR tests taken by people in the South West. Many people will have mixed with family, friends and colleagues, thinking they didn’t have Covid, and inadvertently spread the disease, probably causing hospitalisations and deaths.  

This must be one of the reasons that our region, long a low-Covid zone, now has almost the highest Covid rates in the UK. Devon’s NHS chiefs have been reduced to making desperate pleas for families to take their relatives home from hospital as soon as possible, to free up beds. It has been reported that not a single orthopaedic operation was performed in the RD&E during an eight-week period, such are the pressures on our hugely-stretched and underfunded NHS.  

But does the Government care? No need for Plan B, Johnson and Sajid Javid say. It’s probably a bonus from their point of view that more and more people with money will simply pay to jump the horrendous queues, thereby contributing to privatisation and undermining the very idea of a universal health service. 

Extraordinary details of how Boris Johnson allegedly overruled the advice of staff to promote the business interests of his former lover Jennifer Arcuri and win her affections are revealed in previously unpublished diary extracts by the US businesswoman.

Mark Townsend www.theguardian.com

According to one entry, the then London mayor even offered to be her “throttle” in an attempt to accelerate her business career, claims that may reopen the possibility of Johnson facing a potential criminal investigation into misconduct allegations.

The diary entries – which appear to have been written during Arcuri’s affair with Johnson and have been seen by the Observer – also suggest that he broke the rules governing ethical conduct in public office in his dealings with Arcuri.

The handwritten excerpts portray Johnson as desperate to offer help to her in promoting her fledgling business as he pursued a sexual relationship with the then 27-year-old.

One entry recalls how Johnson told her: “How can I be the thrust – the throttle – your mere footstep as you make your career? Tell me: how I can help you?”

Arcuri gave her diaries to the veteran journalist John Ware in 2019 after he made an ITV documentary on her relationship with Johnson.

At Ware’s request, Arcuri has now agreed to allow publication of some of the extracts following Johnson’s statements last week about public probity, including how MPs who break conduct rules “should be punished”.

Despite the prime minister’s comments last week, he never mentioned Arcuri in his declaration of interests when he was mayor, and after news of their alleged affair broke in 2019, he said there was no interest to declare.

The revelations will pile yet more pressure on the prime minister after 10 days of relentless allegations of sleaze and impropriety by Conservatives MPs, and growing anger inside the Tory party over Johnson’s own responsibility for, and handling of, the crisis.

The latest Opinium poll for the Observer today shows how the stream of damaging stories has hit Johnson and his party, with Labour now holding a lead over the Tories for the first time since January this year.

The poll puts Labour on 37% (up 1 point), the Conservatives on 36% (down 1), the Liberal Democrats on 9%, the Greens 7%, and the SNP 5%. Johnson’s personal approval ratings have sunk to another all time low of -21%. A fortnight ago the Conservatives held a five-point lead over Labour.

Responding to the latest Arcuri revelations, a government spokesperson said: “As mayor, Boris Johnson followed all the legal requirements in the Greater London Assembly’s [sic] code of conduct at the time.”

The diaries, however, indicate that Johnson pursued Arcuri, offering to advance her business interests in the apparent hope that this might lead to a sexual relationship with the woman who dubbed him “Alex the Great”.

One diary entry, from 2012, states that Johnson told her: “I can barely control myself whenever I see you. You make me too excited. Baby I couldn’t wait. All year I have been waiting for you. All year. You drove me nuts. I have thought about no woman as I have thought of you.”

Potentially more damaging are excerpts that allege Johnson bragged about ignoring advice from his staff who urged him not to help Arcuri promote her tech company Innotech.

After Johnson had agreed to Arcuri’s request to be the keynote speaker at the launch of Innotech, Arcuri states in a diary entry for 27 February 2013 that Johnson boasted to her how he’d rejected the advice of his staff not to attend. It states: “I just want you to know they came to me and I crushed them. They said: ‘You can’t do this Innotech in April.’ I said: ‘Yes, I can, I’ll be there.’ I only want to do this to make you happy. How I do wish to make you satisfied.”

Another diary entry, this time from November 2012, alleges that Johnson told Arcuri: “You are going to get me in so much trouble.” She also claims that her lover admitted he was aware of a conflict of interest when she asked him to “validate” her tech work publicly.

Members of the Greater London Authority oversight committee which is currently investigating allegations of conflict of interest during Johnson’s time as London mayor called the revelations “significant”.

Committee chair Caroline Pidgeon, speaking in her capacity as an assembly member, said Arcuri’s diary notes were of serious concern. She said: “This new material from Jennifer Arcuri is significant and the IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] may wish to consider whether they need to reopen their investigation.”

Last year the IOPC said it would not be launching a criminal inquiry into whether Johnson abused his position as mayor to “benefit and reward” Arcuri. Arcuri received £126,000 of public money in the form of grants for her technology business and event sponsorship. In addition, she was given access to foreign trade missions led by Johnson. Arcuri insists that none of them were granted personally by Johnson and to date there remains no evidence that they were.

IOPC investigators never had access to Arcuri’s handwritten diary entries in which she made “verbatim” notes of the highlights of his telephone calls and their conversations.

For the IOPC to open a new inquiry into whether Johnson should be investigated for criminal misconduct it must receive a referral from the GLA monitoring officer – an ethics watchdog – to look into the fresh allegations made by Arcuri in her diary. A GLA spokesperson confirmed its monitoring officer would assess “any new significant evidence” into the relationship between Arcuri and Johnson.

Although the police decided no investigation was warranted, the IOPC found his failure to declare the conflict of interest may have breached the GLA 2012 code of conduct.

At the same time as pursuing Arcuri for sex in 2012, Johnson endorsed the code in which he undertook not to bring the GLA “into disrepute” by using his position to “improperly confer on or secure for themselves or any other person, an advantage or disadvantage.”

In December that year, Arcuri returned to the US with Arcuri writing that Johnson was continuing to offer: “How can I be your footstool to your career?” She added how he was “always trying to think of ways to please me.”

Arcuri says Johnson never explained that their relationship posed a head-on conflict with the Nolan principles – ethical standards expected of public office holders and which promote “selflessness, integrity, objectivity, and honesty” in public life. She says that she’d never heard of Nolan until after news broke about their relationship in the autumn of 2019.

As the COP climate summit approached its conclusion in Glasgow without a major declaration for protecting the planet, Exmouth has erred on the safe side and tested its new £12 million defence scheme.

Paul Nero www.radioexe.co.uk

Volunteers will operate the floodgates

The Environment Agency, which led the project, has declared it a “great success.”

This week volunteers tested the procedure for closing flood gates that have been installed along the seafront.

The gates will spend most of their lives open, and only need to be closed when flooding is predicted. More than 1,400 residential and 400 commercial properties now have a reduced risk from rising water. Closing the gates is said to take minutes.

Ben Johnstone Environment Agency area flood and coastal erosion manager thanked the volunteers who operate the gates.

He said: “We train all year round with our partner agencies to make sure we are equipped to respond to incidents, at this time of year with an increase in flood risk it’s vital we make sure we are prepared”.

Councillor Geoff Jung, East Devon District Council portfolio holder for coast, country and environment said: “With all the talk of global warming and rising sea levels, it is great to see this £12 million scheme operational which will protect many vulnerable properties and businesses in Exmouth. We are working on other schemes ourselves and with partners throughout the district to protect properties and businesses which are vulnerable from the sea level rise and increased storm events”  

Some bigger gates along the seafront, such as those that cross roads, require traffic management.  They will result in temporary road closures when flooding is expected. 

Exmouth Journal: Letter from Katherine Wilcox

Five years ago the world watched with a growing sense of disbelief and alarm as President Trump dismantled the institutions and systems of American government which interfered with his agenda to have total control of government.

He used presidential privilege to pardon wrongdoers and ultimately attempted to interfere with the voting system in an attempt to secure a second term in office. When that failed he fomented an insurrection by his supporters who stormed Capitol Hill in January 2021 leading to the death of several people including one security officer who died trying to protect the elected members of the senate.

The Republican senators stood by and refused to act to stop his outrageous attack on the democratic systems of the USA. Even after the insurrection they would not support calls for his impeachment.

We have witnessed Boris Johnson abusing our system of government in a similar fashion. He does not think the rules apply to him; he excuses the inexcusable behaviour of his ministers and friends even after they have been found guilty by parliamentary standards committees of having breached the rules of conduct; he treats the judiciary with contempt if it stands in his way; he prorogued Parliament in October 2019 after the Supreme Court ruled that his first attempt was unlawful. This action had the effect of reducing the time available to debate the Brexit deal. Johnson finally presented the deal to Parliament on Christmas Eve 2019 so that there would be no time for proper debate or scrutiny by Parliament before it was signed off by the January 1st deadline.

Johnson has accused the EU of being obstructive because it is not acceding to all the changes he wants to make to the oven ready Brexit deal which his minister Lord Frost negotiated. The electorate are realising that they have been hoodwinked into voting for a deal which is costing Britain dear.

In two weeks he has outraged Parliament again by using the Chief Whip to get Tory MPs to stop legislation to make water companies clean up their act and now by trying to change the rules of the parliamentary standards watchdog to save Owen Patterson’s skin after he clearly broke the rules on lobbying. Those Tory MPs who have not voted against these outrageous actions need to ignore threats to withhold levelling up funding to their constituencies and resist this corrupt prime minister who is bringing our democracy into such disrepute. American citizens witnessed the near destruction of their democracy by allowing death by a thousand cuts by Trump to the judicial and government standards which are there to protect their democratic system of government. If Johnson is not stopped from treating our parliament and judiciary with the same contempt as Trump, then Britain is at risk of becoming a mafia state run by crooks whose only agenda is their personal enrichment and to hell with everyone else.

KATHERINE WILCOX

Exmouth

Exmouth Journal: Letter from Graham Hurley

This is an open letter to our MP, Simon Jupp. If it reads like a charge sheet, that’s probably because it is.

£37 billion spaffed on Track and Trace? One of the highest Covid death rates in Europe? Local farmers abandoned? Local fishermen sold down the river? Truck drivers a dying breed? Local government on its knees? International treaties torn up? Judicial review under attack? Ditto the BBC, Channel Four, and any other voice raised in protest? And now Downing Street’s blatant attempt to protect one of its own by changing the rules, only to toss him overboard when the going gets rough?

Simon, if you really love East Devon maybe now is the time to jump ship and cross the parliamentary aisle before the Fraud Squad – or the men in white coats – arrive outside the gates of Downing Street. For your sake, and ours, leave this bunch of chancers and incompetents to the fate they so richly deserve.

GRAHAM HURLEY

I don’t think of myself as a “politician”, and neither do my colleagues in senior councillor roles at East Devon District Council.

Paul Arnott www.midweekherald.co.uk

None of us wish to climb the greasy pole, or line up jobs or consultancies as a result of our positions. Indeed, it’s highly unlikely these would be offered. We are not in the Conservative party. 

However, there is one “political” thing that does unite my senior councillors at East Devon, and that is a repeatedly stated and campaigned-on revulsion for corruption in any tier of government. My own pals at EDDC first came together under the umbrella of the Independent East Devon Alliance, in significant part because a Conservative councillor who had been the dominant figure in planning around here was caught in a sting by the Daily Telegraph and made the front page. 

He was recorded on video boasting that he was the man to come to for planning permission but that he didn’t “come cheap”, saying that if he was going to turn a field into a housing estate he’d need tens of thousands of pounds paid through his planning consultancy. 

The police took nearly two years to decide there was no case to answer and the council itself then immediately scrapped the promised enquiry through its own Scrutiny committee to look into the matter. In other words, with the Tories all powerful back then in 2015 when that appalling decision to stifle debate was made, there has been two years of long grass followed by a “nothing to see here/case closed”. 

Amazingly, and to the council’s shame, the argument was made that the whole matter had been “political”, smearing both the independent councillor Claire Wright and my pals at the East Devon Alliance, then just a rather lovely group of local campaigners chaired by an immaculately behaved retired judge. 

And here was the mistake, taken from the national Tory playbook. The result of that shabby little denial of any further debate was that by 2019 Claire Wright polled more than 20,000 votes in a general election and the Conservatives at East Devon were reduced to just 19 out of 60 councillors, losing power for the first time in the district’s history. In other words, voters across the world hate this stuff, and it is a truism now that the cover-up gets punished more than the original act. 

In my five minutes of spare time a week I am getting going on the research for my next book, which will be about the support for and seeds of British fascism in the aristocracy after WW1. Their funding and influence persisted well into my lifetime, and the emergence of the National Front in the 70s.  

But even these fascists would have hesitated before attempting Johnson’s plans; he wanted to close Parliament for his own ends, he wants to scrap judicial reviews, and now he has nearly succeeded in breaking the rules preventing corruption in the Commons.  

“He’s such a laugh” people used to say but he isn’t; he is as much a threat to democracy as Trump in America, and if our local MPs – who lacked the guts to vote against him last week – want to look themselves in the mirror again they should vote him out of his role and take Jacob Rees-Mogg with him. Our country is not safe in their hands. 

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, it is often said, and as we showed in East Devon, there comes a point when the electorate just will not put up with any more of this stuff from the Conservatives locally. In the Commons this week they looked utterly shattered. If there was ever a time for a national opposition to unite to remove their power, as we have done in East Devon, it is now. 

PS It was these events in East Devon that stirred an “old” Owl to take wing “Keeping a close eye on our District” in 2014.

Sir Geoffrey Cox is facing fresh questions over sleaze after claiming almost £1,500 in travel expenses for seven round trips to London in three months last year when he only voted in person on three days.

Carl Eve www.devonlive.com

On the other 18 days of voting in the House of Commons in that period, the Torridge and West Devon MP used an arrangement called a “proxy” to cast a vote without attending.

The Mirror’s investigation found that during the same three months, from October to December 2020, Mr Cox devoted 178 hours to four outside jobs which paid him a total of £143,625.

At the end of this spell, PM Boris Johnson gave Mr Cox a knighthood for his “parliamentary and political service”.

Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said: “At first sight of the evidence available, it appears that Sir Geoffrey has questions to answer. The appropriate authorities should look into this.”

The Mirror’s latest revelations comes after a week of stinging criticism for Westminster’s top-earning MP, who has pocketed almost £6million from legal work on the side since becoming member for Torridge and West Devon in 2005.

His work ethic has not impressed his constituents. Brian Eales, 75, a volunteer at Tavistock Food Bank, said: “I’ve never seen Geoffrey Cox at the food bank in support. At the moment it seems to be all self, feathering his own nest.”

Business owner Suzanne Weston, 53, said: “Geoffrey Cox should stand down. What’s he’s doing is disgusting. Nobody can do two full-time jobs at once.”

Angela Evans, 64, said: “I’m personally appalled by the situation. I would not want him to be returned to office.”

The Mirror examined Mr Cox’s record in the last quarter of 2020 and found no evidence he spoke in Parliament or asked written questions and he was not listed on any parliamentary committees.

He completed the 440-mile round trip by car from his constituency home in Tavistock, Devon, to London seven times in the three months and claimed £105.75 from the taxpayer each way.

Yet he voted in person in the House of Commons on just three days – October 21, November 25 and December 2. For 54 other Commons votes over 18 days of Parliamentary debate he used a proxy.

His register of interests shed light on what else he was doing during that time.

Khan Partnership Solicitors in London paid him £8,000 “for legal services provided between 12 November and 4 December 2020” totalling “12 hrs approx”. The firm paid him £8,875 “for legal services provided in November 2020” totalling “10 hrs approx”.

Khan paid him another “£9,750 for legal services provided in October 2020” totalling 12 hours “approx”.

At the end of September 2020, Mr Cox received the first quarterly payment of £117,000 from Withers LLP for “up to 48 hours a month”. He continues to receive a quarterly payment from the London firm.

Mr Cox did not respond to a request for comment.

Devon County Council is facing a £7 million overspend this financial year according to its latest forecast.

Ollie Heptinstall, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Adult and children’s services are projected to have the biggest overspends with a warning that “significant pressures are being experienced” in both departments and the situation “will need to be monitored closely in the coming months.”

The month-six budget report, presented to the council’s ruling cabinet, said more people with learning disabilities and autism are being cared for than originally expected, while more older people need nursing placements than forecast too.

In addition, more children are being placed with independent foster carers than predicted and shortages in the workforce are leading to higher costs for agency staff.

Councillor Phil Twiss (Conservative, Feniton & Honiton), cabinet member for finance, said the council’s position is “far from unique in England” and largely reflects the impact of covid.  He noted the overspend was slightly lower than the previous month-four prediction of £7.3 million.

Devon has this year received pandemic-related grants totalling more than £36 million, as well as carrying over funding from last year of £26 million.

However, the report warned that “the ever-changing landscape we are faced with continues to present service delivery challenges and financial risks.”

Despite overspends in adult and children’s services totalling more than £12 million, underspends in some other departments have helped reduce the overall predicted deficit to £7 million.

A predicted £36 million overspend on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) this year is outside the forecast because the government has told local authorities to allocate it to a separate ring-fenced account until April 2023.

However, combined with previous years’ totals, the overall SEND overspend is expected to be £85 million by the end of 2021/22, and councillors expressed concern about what will happen to it when the ring-fencing arrangement ends.

County treasurer Angie Sinclair told them: “There is still no indication from government on what will happen at the end of that three-year period” but she added the council could soon join a “hybrid” scheme with the government containing more support.

New homes yet to be built in East Devon are the reason why Cranbrook residents will have to wait until at least spring 2022 until the town’s boundary can be made official.

Becca Gliddon eastdevonnews.co.uk

East Devon District Council (EDDC) said it will not define the Cranbrook parish boundary for at least six months until an inspector has signed off a plan outlining the town’s upcoming developments.

Cranbrook Town Council has been told by EDDC to reidentify the areas of surrounding countryside to be included as part of the town once a review of future homes has been rubber stamped.

EDDC councillors, at a cabinet meeting held on November 3, voted for a boundary review to be shelved until the Cranbrook Plan has been signed off.

Concerns raised included how development expansion across boundaries could leave neighbouring homes becoming split into different parishes.

An EDDC spokesperson said: “The Cranbrook Plan, which looks to define the future expansion areas for the town, is currently being looked at by a government inspector and a report back is currently awaited.

“Current indications are that this report will be received around the end of the year.

“The cabinet papers mentioned how when communities expand some new homes can end up being built across boundaries, meaning some neighbours are in different parishes from one another.

“When this happens, councils are advised to consider undertaking a community governance review – this is assuming that all the houses have been built – or at least have permission- and that there is a degree of certainty and permanence in terms of development on the ground.

“For this reason, councillors voted for the boundary review to be discontinued and invited Cranbrook Town Council to reapply for it at a later date, after the Cranbrook Plan has been signed off.”

EDDC said a decision on where the Cranbrook parish boundary will have to wait ‘at least six months’ until the plan outlining the town’s next developments has been signed off by an inspector.

“A petition was put forward by Cranbrook Town Council requesting that East Devon District Council cabinet conduct a community governance review, defining what areas of the surrounding countryside will become part of the new town,” EDDC said.

“The matter was discussed at the latest EDDC cabinet meeting on Wednesday, 3 November following consultation with all affected parishes and with consideration of the current status of the Cranbrook Plan.”

A joke about shotguns, made at a meeting of the Devon and Cornwall police and crime panel in Plymouth on Friday, left some observers shocked.

Philip Churm, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk

Chair of the panel County Cllr Roger Croad (Cons, Ivybridge) was responding to the idea of using voluntary parking attendants outside schools.

It was among many issues raised as the commissioner launched her police and crime plan for the next four years. 

Police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall Alison Hernandez said: “We have a community that has a hunger for being voluntary parking attendants outside a school. Now I know it will be probably tricky [but] I’d love to pilot that.

“You know, this community have had enough. They are really frustrated and we’ve got to work out a way to do it. And we’ve got a community that have come forward saying, we’re willing. So we’ll see how that goes as well.”

Cllr Croad responded with the off-the-cuff remark:

“That would be very interesting one. If you’re calling for voluntary parking attendants, I think you should issue them all with a sawn-off shotgun because it could be awkward, couldn’t it?”

Plymouth Council House, where the meeting was taking place, is less than three miles from the Keyham shooting in August in which Jake Davison shot and killed five people before turning the gun on himself. 

Horrified former assistant chief constable with Devon and Cornwall police Chris Boarland immediately took to Twitter, saying:  “Listen with horror as the panel chair makes a joke about issuing voluntary parking attendants outside a school with sawn-off shotguns. 

“With all that has happened recently and with ongoing concerns about firearms licensing. How can that comment go unchallenged?”

Commissioner Hernandez later addressed his comments suggesting they were misplaced and inappropriate. 

In 2017, Ms Hernandez was criticised herself after a phone-in on BBC Radio Cornwall in which she said told a caller she would “be really interested” in the idea of letting gun owners use their firearms during a terror attack. She said the proposal should be raised with the chief constable to address the implications.

At the time, Devon and Cornwall deputy chief constable Paul Netherton said it was “definitely an emphatic ‘no’” that people should arm themselves against such a threat.

A father has written a long and passionate letter detailing his wife and son’s 13 hours of hell in the emergency department at Torbay Hospital.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com

The letter (published in full below) details what happened when Liz Jeffery drove her 24-year-old son Miles to the hospital herself with an emergency bowel condition after being told there would be a six hour wait for an ambulance.

Throughout the ordeal she was in contact with her husband Alan who was working in Plymouth and he heard first hand a blow-by-blow account of the horrors they encountered all around them.

At one point, sobbing and in pain, Liz said her son asked her: “Mum have I died and gone to hell?”

Torbay Hospital says they are seeing more patients, waits are longer in the Emergency Department and it has become harder to discharge patients because of people with Covid in the community and in their staff.

Mother and son witnessed the already overcrowded and cramped waiting room getting more and more full as they waited for help for 12 hours on Wednesday this week – watching as up to 16 ambulances queued outside.

The couple said they have nothing but praise for the five staff (two health care assistants, one nurse and two doctors) who were there – and also for the high quality of care at Torbay Hospital their son Miles has had for multiple complex health conditions throughout his life.

But Mr Jeffery says he is angry at the people who were not there – and is asking “Where are the managers?”

And he added: “Why are there less than half the staff running a busy A&E department than I have running my garage?”

Mr Jeffery, from Littlehempston near Totnes, is a consultant and former owner of Engine Tuner garage in Plymouth for 37 years.

He said it was like a war zone.

“Conditions were only separated from the Lebanon by the absence of broken glass and rubble,” he said.

In the end the couple decided that their son was too ill to stay all night, sitting on a hard plastic chair in A&E and waiting for a doctor on his morning rounds to see them. There were no beds and no trolleys for him to lie on.

“We were told that Miles was next in line for a bed – I got the distinct impression that he would only get one if somebody died,” Mrs Jeffery said.

She had to sign disclaimer forms before being allowed to drive her son home.

“I knew there was no point asking for an ambulance as I could see they were all still queueing outside,” she said.

Mrs Jeffery said there was no privacy for people who arrived. She cried as she recalled the young mum who came in reporting a miscarriage. Another woman collapsed unconscious at their feet. An elderly man with dementia sat bleeding beside them. A woman with a “hideously deformed” broken leg, with sweat on her face from the pain, had to keep asking people not to kick her leg as they walked past.

Police brought in a man in a spit hood. A male security guard was the only person free to take a woman in a wheelchair to the toilet. Another woman drunk or on drugs wet herself as she slept.

“It was like watching an episode of a horror movie – every time someone comes in you would hear an even worse story. There’s no privacy,” Mrs Jeffrery said.

“I’ve never been through anything like it in my whole life. We want to stress that Miles has had nothing but superb treatment his whole life at that hospital.

“And the people working on Wednesday were kind and patient – the young health care assistants looked only about 18 or 19 to me. One looked in danger of collapsing herself because she was the one everyone was firing questions at. The doctor we saw was running down the corridors. He was so kind. He even took blood samples himself because there was such a long wait.”

He husband decided to put pen to paper to tell people about the broken system.

“Liz was telling me everything live via Messenger,” he said. “It was lucky I wasn’t there because I would have gone apoplectic.

“I was listening to her and thinking ‘Where’s the managers?’ It’s ludicrous that they only have five people running that department.

“The system is broken. It was just lucky that my son didn’t have internal bleeding. Miles shouldn’t have been going through A&E – it’s just a convenient catch-all.

“People were scared and in pain and nobody was coming up to ask them if they needed the toilet, a drink – there was no simple humanity.

“I do not believe that “under funding” is the direct cause of this. I believe that muddled thinking, poor management and a completely flawed attitude to primary care is at fault. Along with the care system, it has been completely forgotten that how people feel really matters.

“”The practice of funnelling everybody through the A and E bottleneck should cease. There must be a viable method of dispersal to the correct sort of care that avoids everybody being lumped together in a humiliating lottery for attention. Remember, it should be an Accident and Emergency department, not the war zone it has become.”

What Torbay Hospital had to say

A spokesperson for Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust said: “We are sorry to hear about the experience of Mr Jeffery’s family. While we are unable to comment on individual cases, we would encourage anyone who has concerns about the care and treatment they receive from our services to contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service so that we can investigate.

“Like most trusts, we have been under significant pressure during recent months with more people needing emergency treatment and an increase in prevalence of COVID-19 in our communities, our hospitals and our staff. This has had an impact across our whole healthcare system with fewer beds available in our hospitals and in care homes and fewer care staff to support people at home. This in turn makes it difficult to discharge people from hospital into the community or back home, and means that sometimes patients being admitted to hospital from our Emergency Department (ED) will experience long waits before we can find a ward bed for them.

“We are seeing five per cent more people attending our Emergency Department than at the same time last year and sadly, many of those attending do face long waits for treatment if their condition is not an immediate life-threatening emergency.

“Every person waiting for care is important to us, and our dedicated staff will always prioritise the sickest patients first. Sadly, in the current environment, this means difficult decisions often have to be made and some people experience a longer wait and a poorer overall experience than we would like.”

“Our Emergency Department team make sure that patients waiting are assessed and care is escalated and prioritised where there are clinical concerns about individual patients.”

Mr Jeffery’s Letter to the Editor in full:

This litany of disasters happened this week in Torbay Hospital but I believe it could have been anywhere in the country.

My wife had to take our son to A and E. A call to 111 was made after he started suffering considerable pain from a bowel condition that was previously under control.

A paramedic was suggested but ruled out due to none being available.

We were told that they would call back in an hour and a half. They didn’t. Another call suggested an ambulance, but they thought it could take up to six hours.

Having discussed the matter, my wife decided to drive our son to A and E herself. With some difficulty, bearing in mind that despite a stoic nature regarding his chronic bowel problem, my son is also on the Autistic Spectrum and has been known to have epileptic episodes when ill.

He was safely delivered into what he subsequently and accurately described as “Hell”.

There were people literally rammed in there, sitting, standing, anything but lying down as there was nothing to lie down on. No trollies, never mind beds, just rows of hard plastic chairs containing a smorgasbord of misery.

Sixteen ambulances were parked outside with patients waiting their turn in the bear pit. A lady sat right alongside my wife had a horribly dislocated ankle and was in terrible pain, begging passers by to be careful as they blundered about.

An elderly man was wearing a mask caked in blood, dripping down the front of his chest.

A couple came in, slowly working their way in, the lady’s face down at one side, clearly displaying the tendencies of a stroke victim.

They were sent away after four hours. There were numerous walking wounded in there, my wife said she would have suspected a bus crash, but they didn’t all come in together.

Babies were crying, people talking loudly on phones, some complaining loudly, some being asked to leave. Several times, she was approached by people asking for help, including one poor lady who requested assistance with the toilet.

My wife couldn’t help her, even though she wanted to, as my son demanded all her attention. No one else offered. One lady told the nurse in clear earshot of everybody listening that she’d had a stillbirth a few months previously and suspected that she had an ectopic pregnancy due to the pain she was in. She was left clutching her stomach and sobbing in a chair for hours.

The police arrived at one point, dragging in someone wearing a spit hood. Security guards were present, stopping people who were helping other people from coming in, unless they could say they were “carers”. Many who were sat on those hard slabs of plastic could have done with some company, shared misery being somehow easier to bear.

Throughout all of this, patients were attended to by just one nurse, two doctors and two ladies dressed in green who were attempting to administer a house of babel from behind glass. I say just one nurse, as every time a shift change took place, the one nurse left to be replaced by another nurse. After four hours, my son was examined by a doctor, who was kind and knowledgeable. Regrettably, he mentioned accessing a blood test, only to be told that my son hadn’t had one.

He did it himself, via a canula insertion. An x ray was recommended, for fear that my son could have a dangerously blocked bowel. Thankfully, the x ray, done several hours later, confirmed the negative.

There then followed several more hours sitting in waiting room purgatory, nowhere for him to lie down, supposedly waiting for a bed, before my wife decided enough was enough. My wife and son had been given no access to food or drink. The shop was closed. The water fountain had no cups.

They were there for thirteen hours in total with no actual medicinal attention, including the hour it took to have the canula removed and more time wasted signing disclaimers because leaving the place was the only viable option. He obviously wasn’t getting a bed, so our son was taken back home to his own. The day after, he was finally seen by a doctor in the gastro department, who is taking his condition forward. His pain has lessened, he needs further treatment.”

A Devon GP has told how she was forced to consider driving a baby with low oxygen levels to hospital herself as she waited on hold for an emergency ambulance.

Edward Oldfield www.devonlive.com 

Dr Ruth Down revealed she was held on the phone to the control centre for 15 minutes then had to call back on 999 as the child’s condition got worse.

The GP was again put on hold for several minutes, and she had to work out if the practice’s oxygen cylinder would last long enough so she could drive the baby to hospital.

Dr Down, a partner at Bideford Medical Centre in North Devon, said it was one of many examples which show “how close basic medical care is to collapsing in the UK”.

The case comes as the latest ambulance performance figures shows the South West had the longest average response time in England for the most urgent calls.

South Western Ambulance Service, which covers the region from Cornwall to Gloucestershire, says it has experienced the highest ever sustained demand.

It has highlighted the worst ever queues to hand over patients at hospitals, and says the system-wide problem has a knock-on effect on its performance.

Figures in the summer showed the waiting lists for NHS treatment were the highest ever following the Covid pandemic, with record numbers attending emergency departments.

Dr Down said in a letter to The Guardian newspaper that the incident with the baby was the first time in her 24-year career that she faced “a very real possibility” of not being able to get an emergency ambulance.

Responding to an earlier letter from a consultant about the pressure on the NHS, the doctor said: “The view from primary care is equally grim, with a chronic shortage of social care beds causing delayed hospital discharges, long waits in A&E, and paramedic crews queueing for hours before they can hand their patients over to hospital staff. The end result is exceptional pressure on the ambulance service.

“I work in general practice and had to call an ambulance last week for a baby with low oxygen levels. I phoned ambulance control, the normal process, and was on hold for 15 minutes, at which point I called 999 instead because the baby was deteriorating, only to be placed on hold again for several more minutes, during which I was calculating whether our practice oxygen cylinder would last long enough to transfer the baby to hospital in my car.

“In my 24-year career I have never faced a situation where there was a very real possibility that we would not be able to access an emergency ambulance. I cannot understand how this situation is not headline news and why the government insists that the NHS is not under undue pressure. Sadly, this incident was only one of many examples I could quote which illustrate how close basic medical care is to collapsing in the UK.”

Richard Webber, of the College of Paramedics and a working paramedic, told the BBC that his colleagues “have never before experienced anything like this at this time of the year”.

He added: “Every day services are holding hundreds of 999 calls with no-one to send. The ambulance service is simply not providing the levels of service they should – patients are waiting too long and that is putting them at risk.”

The latest NHS figures show ambulance response times for the South West in October were again the worst in England for the most serious cases, following a similar outcome for September.

It took an average of almost 12 minutes to reach patients with life-threatening injuries or illnesses such as heart attacks, against a target of seven minutes.

The average response time for South Western Ambulance Service, which covers the region from Cornwall to Gloucestershire, was 11 minutes and 48 seconds for category one calls in October. The average for England was nine minutes and 20 seconds.

For less urgent emergencies such as strokes and burns, classed as category two the response time in the South West was much better compared to the other England trusts.

The average for the South Western service was 24 minutes and 25 seconds, against a target of 18 minutes.

That was third best out of the 11 trusts in England, where the overall average response time was 53 minutes and 54 seconds.

A spokesperson from South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust said: “We continue to experience the highest-ever level of sustained demand on our service.

“Our response times are directly affected by the time it takes us to handover patients into busy hospital emergency departments, which is longer than we have ever seen before.

“We are losing many more hours compared with recent years which causes our ambulances to queue outside hospitals and unable to respond to other patients and has an inevitable impact on the service we can provide. This is a health system problem which therefore demands a system solution.

“It is an absolute priority for us and our NHS partners to reduce these delays, so we can be there for our patients, while prioritising those who are most seriously injured and ill.

“Patients who need urgent medical help or advice are encouraged to visit or to call 111, which is free and available 24/7. This will ensure they get the right care, and the ambulance service can focus on those most in need.

“For on-going or non-urgent medical concerns or if they need medicines, people should contact their local GP surgery or a local pharmacy.”

Extract from www.dailymail.co.uk

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