MORALE has been described as ‘horrendous’ for paramedics in Dorset, who are responding to unprecedented levels of 999 calls.

This comes after the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) recorded the highest call levels in its history, sickness levels are on the increase and there’s a shortage of frontline paramedics.

Added to these problems, handover delays at hospitals in the South West increased to 1,834 hours during December.

The service’s ‘real concerns’ were announced by directors at the trust’s board meeting yesterday.

The board heard how the response times to Red 1 and Red 2 incidents – the most serious life threatening cases – were below the national targets in December and the situation was not forecasted to improve before March 2015.

In England, paramedics are required to attend 75 per cent of Red 1 incidents in eight minutes. In Dorset, during December the service reached only 64 per cent of Red 2 incidents in eight minutes.

During the meeting, directors heard that the number of calls in December 2014 was ‘significantly higher than planned’ with unprecedented demand seen across the trust for the six-week period from the end of November to the first week of January 2015.

The number of A&E incidents in December reached 81,079 across the South West – a 16.24% increase on the previous year.

A Dorset paramedic, who wished not to be named, said: “For frontline paramedics and practitioners morale is dangerously low with some colleagues close to burn-out.”

He said the targets are unattainable, stressful and put pressure on the paramedics, which is detrimental to their function as an emergency medic.

Another paramedic, with 15 years of experience, said: “The situation is dire; we simply do not have the resource to deal with the demand.

“I’ve seen people waiting in cars after a collision for up to two hours.”

He added that front-line paramedics are constantly required to work past their 12-hour shifts due to lack of resources.

A spokesperson for SWASFT denied this and stated: “There are times when ambulance crews work beyond the end of their shift. This is not due to a lack of resources but is due to the high levels of demand across the area and the need to allocate crews to high priority incidents.”

When asked about staff morale, the spokesman added that: “The views of one or two staff are not representative of the organisation.

“SWASFT recognises that staff are working incredibly hard under considerable pressure.”

  • A spokesman for South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “The Trust received an unprecedented number of calls during late December and early January. High levels of demand are anticipated during the winter period, but this year saw a significant rise in the number of calls to 999 and 111. The Trust has robust plans to deal with high levels of activity and has implemented a range of measures, including the use of additional clinical staff in the control room to increase the number of patients that can be treated over the phone, as well as the use of private ambulance services to support our crews and help meet demand.”
    The trust added that nationally there are a number of paramedic vacancies and they are addressing this issue.