It is estimated that about 2.7 million people, one in 24, have had the virus in the past week. Staff absences, the extreme heat wave and delays in transferring patients to the emergency department have wreaked havoc on services, prompting the warning.
All 10 ambulance trusts have been put on “black alert”, otherwise known as the Resource Escalation Plan 4 – meaning they are under “extreme pressure”.
Under this plan, patients who do not have life-threatening injuries could be told to make their own way to the hospital. The plan prioritizes patients with urgent and life-threatening emergencies.
West Midlands Ambulance Service said it had been at its highest level of alert for a few months, while South Central Ambulance Service confirmed it was also on REAP 4.
South Central added it had also declared a critical incident “due to the current pressure on our services”.
It said in a statement: “We continue to prioritize our response to those patients with life-threatening and major emergencies, but due to the current pressures we see there will be delays in responding to other patients with less urgent needs assessed as an ambulance response is required.
“We are experiencing an increasing number of 999 calls in our service, combined with patients calling back if there is a delay in our response to them. As a result, our capacity to take calls is being severely tested.
“This is combined with the challenges of transferring patients to busy hospitals in our region and an increase in Covid infections, as well as other respiratory illnesses, both among staff and our communities.
“This week we also face high temperatures in our region, which we know will lead to increased demand for our service. All of these issues together impact our ability to respond to patients.”
Other ambulance services reported similar problems, including long wait times when transferring patients to the emergency room.
A spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance Trust said one of their crews had to wait 24 hours to hand their patient over to A&E.
The NHS also suffered from staff absenteeism due to Covid and the impact of the current heat wave.
An NHS England spokesperson said: “Near record levels of 999 calls, challenges to discharge patients to social care facilities, increasing Covid cases – leading to more than 20,000 staff absences – and the current heat wave is inevitably impacting the NHS -capacity.
“However, it remains vital that the public continues to call 999 in an emergency and continue to use 111 online or their local pharmacy for other health concerns and advice.”
More to follow