High demand due to industrial action

East of England Ambulance Service is facing extremely high demand this week due to industrial action taking place across other parts of the NHS

This week see historic joint action by junior doctors and consultants that will severely affect routine care services – and delay ambulance crews being able to hand over patients to hospital staff.

From 7am on Monday until 7am on Thursday, both junior doctors and consultants will deliver ‘Christmas Day’ levels of staffing only, meaning that, while emergency care will be provided for those in need, routine hospital services will be severely affected.

The first-ever joint industrial action by both consultants and junior doctors took place last week, seeing 129,913 inpatient and outpatient appointments rescheduled across the week.

Ahead of this week’s extensive action, the public that they should continue to use health services as they usually would – using 999 and A&E in life threatening situations and using 111 online for other health concerns. GPs and pharmacies can be used by the public for health advice and appointments as normal.

EEAST Chief Executive Tom Abell said: “This week our services will be extremely busy and will likely have delays at hospitals as we work with our partners to transfer patients - and get our ambulances back out on the road. Please always continue to call 999 in an emergency and we will get to you.”