THE number of emergency calls for ambulance services in the county is closing in on 2,000 over a single month.

 That 2,000 mark is expected to be reached by Christmas Day.

From December 1 to midday today (Mon),  1,883 calls had been made requiring attention from either an ambulance crew, a fast response paramedic,  community first responder or control room staff offering advice.

Demand levels have been described as unprecedented with 631 calls coming in from the county between December 15 and so far today.

That’s up 111 on the same time last year.

Yesterday (Sunday) saw the biggest spike with 95 emergency calls made,  the majority between 12am-3am, 8am-9am, and 2pm-3pm.

Common calls were to falls, breathing problems, and “general illness”.

It is accepted that call  numbers could have been higher but for street pastors haven initiative launched in Hereford this weekend caring for revellers in the city centre.

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.