The Chief Executive Officer of the London Ambulance Service (LAS) Ann Radmore is calling for changes in the way the service is run and said recently, "Our Service is facing increasing levels of demand, with 999 calls into our control room up 10 per cent on last year and our staff responding to 4.1 per cent more incidents overall. We have been providing a good level of service to our patients with life-threatening illnesses and injuries, despite attending 14 per cent more of these patients. But some of our patients who have less serious conditions are having to wait longer for our help than they should. We have reduced our frontline staffing numbers by 230 over the last two years as part of our five-year savings plan and this, coupled with a higher than expected increase in demand, means our staff are much busier than those in any other ambulance service. On a normal day, frontline staff spend 80 per cent of their time dealing with patients, compared with 60 per cent in other ambulance services. Essentially, this means staff are extremely busy throughout the entire shift. And we recognise that our control room staff come under immense pressure when we are busy and are holding high numbers of calls. As a result staff are feeling the pressure, and those who work on the frontline are not getting regular breaks during shifts and have difficulty being released for training.
