Taxpayers are paying out thousands of pounds to county fire crews to help move obese people, new figures show.

Figures from the Home Office show that the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service attended 82 callouts for bariatric assistance - helping ambulance crews to move obese people - between April 2012 and March 2017.

Of the callouts, which cost an average of £400 per visit, the majority took around an hour to resolve however 14 incidents took more than four hours.

The figures show a stark increase of more than 145 per cent with the service recording 27 incidents in 2016-17 and just 11 incidents in 2012-13.

And the number of cases nationwide nearly doubled over the same period, with unions saying ambulance staff and equipment are being pushed to their limits.

Across the country, fire and rescue services attended 851 bariatric assistance cases in 2016/17 – a 98 per cent increase on five years previously.

However, for some non-emergency cases, services have been able to recover costs since legislation was put in place in 2004.

Commenting on the figures, Unison’s national ambulance officer, Alan Lofthouse, said that judgement on whether bariatric assistance was required was made by paramedics on a case-by-case basis.

He said: “Obesity can be a real issue for ambulance staff trying to help critically ill patients.

“Ambulance equipment has a safe working load, and pushing the limit puts patients and staff at risk. In an emergency a paramedic has to make a judgment call on how best to help an obese patient, and in some instances this means calling for assistance from other services.”

Tam Fry, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, which aims to raise awareness of obesity in the country, added: “The leap in the frequency that fire crews have to winch very obese people from their homes is truly shocking.

“The figures will continue to rise, however, even if the government were to implement drastic measures to combat the epidemic today.”

“It’s the inevitable result of decades of Westminster failing to produce any strategy to help lessen the chances of the fat from getting fatter.”

However, in Dorset, the figures only represent a small portion of the service’s 16,000 non-fire incidents during the period but can be some of the most costly as firefighters often need lifting equipment and special slings to transport people, and sometimes remove windows and walls.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer James Mahoney, said: “As a rescue organisation, we work in partnership with the ambulance service to provide support for a range of emergencies.

“Our role is to help people and to save lives and, with these incidents, we always work with paramedics at the scene to provide an effective and safe response to those in need.”