East: Big Increase in Ambulance Calls

27 March 2012, 06:00 | Updated: 27 March 2012, 06:46

The East of England Ambulance Service are investigating why they had a big increase in emergency call outs over the weekend.

They dealt with nearly 3,000 emergency calls on Saturday – a rise of nearly 30% on the last Saturday in March last year.

On average over the day more than two calls came in every minute with a peak in demand between 12pm and 9pm.

EEAST managers say they will be analysing the day’s activity in a bid to pinpoint reasons for the rise in both emergency and OOH calls but that there was no immediately obvious single cause, although the warm weather could be a factor.

Alan Murray, Director of Service Delivery, said: “It is of course a challenge when demand rises so significantly and unexpectedly but our staff and volunteers have done a fantastic job which meant a good service to our patients was maintained during the huge increase in pressure and I’d like to thank each and every one of them.

“It is difficult to pinpoint a single cause at this time, there could be many complex factors, including the weather, but we will be looking into activity further to see if there is any pattern that could inform our ways of working in the future.”