A CRITICAL CONDITION

NEW SCANDAL HITS AILING NHS

- NICOLA SMALL

• 27 life or death patients sent to A&E by cab
• 281 seriously ill cases taxied to hospital

A CRIPPLING lack of ambulances has seen hundreds of desperately ill patients rushed to hospital by TAXI at a cost of £129,000.

One scandal-hit service ferried 27 critical condition patients by cab. Each was on a category 1 call - needing life-saving intervention or resuscitation.

A further 281 taxi rides were used for category 2 patients with conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, sepsis or burns.

The cases, from last April to November, were in the East of England - the country's worst-performing ambulance service.

Paramedic Glenn Carrington, Unison's regional chair, said: "These are patients who without medical help will die and they are being thrown in the back of a taxi.

"It is like something out of a dystopian movie, but that is how bad things have got. There's no slack in the system. It is broken."