Ambulance Staff Regularly Witness Patients Dying Owing to Delays: Study

A quarter of ambulance workers have witnessed the death of a patient caused by delays in the past three years, a study has shown. A survey of almost 3,000 ambulance workers across the UK found that nearly half the respondents reported having to wait outside an A&E department for their entire shift. Over 80 percent of the workforce said they had suffered verbal abuse, with one third saying they have been victims of physical attacks during the three-year time period. The survey included data and testimonies from ambulance workers, as well as control centre workers, 999, and 111 call handlers. One worker described being first on the scene at a cardiac arrest, which had been marked as code “yellow” for 10 hours, to find the patient dead, in rigor mortis, with the phone ringing in his hands....