NHS Crisis Sees Fire Engines Doubling Up As Ambulances

Firefighters have resorted to taking people to hospital in fire engines amid rocketing call-outs to medical emergencies.

- Lizzie Dearden

Fire and rescue services now respond to more "non-fire incidents" than fires in England, including cardiac arrests, suicide attempts, and elderly people trapped in their homes after falls.

Official statistics show that they attended more than 18,200 medical incidents in 2021-22, an increase of a third from the previous year and that firefighters rather than ambulances were the "first responder" in almost half of those calls.

Chris Lowther, who chairs the National Fire Chiefs' Council's operations committee, said the figures showed a "new reality" as firefighters step in to help struggling ambulance services.

"What firefighters are being asked to do now is not what we were asked to do 10 years ago," he told The Independent. "We are having to deal with incidents where in the past there would have been health colleagues on the scene sooner."

Mr. Lowther, who has been a firefighter in Tyne and Wear for more than two decades, said his colleagues aim to provide the necessary medical treatment at the scene before ambulances transport people to the hospital. But he added that in situations where firefighters are concerned for someone's safety facing a long wait, "some officers have made the decision to transport someone to hospital in a fire engine".

"It's not something I could condone because they're only designed to carry trained firefighters, but I understand the pressures officers have faced in the past," he said.

Andy Dark, assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), said it would "not be in the interest of patients for that to be common practice" but that sometimes firefighters "take the initiative out of frustration or extreme concern".