More than £8 million spent on private ambulances in Shropshire

Figures from a Freedom of Information request to Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group has revealed that spent £3,146,427 on the ambulances in the last financial year alone.

Information, provided by the CCG, which looks after health services across Shropshire, reveals it has an ongoing contract with private ambulance provider Medical Services Limited (MSL).

The contract with MSL is for non-emergency patient transport and the CCG says it does not use private ambulance companies for any blue light calls.

In the 2013 to 2014 financial year, Shropshire CCG spent a total of 693,472 but that has increased year-on-year, so that the amount spent in 2016 to 2017 was 3,146,427.

The total spent over that time is £8,828,563.

The CCG said it did not have any data which showed how regularly the ambulances are used, but they are a regular sight on the roads around Shropshire.

The group also confirmed it has used the services of voluntary ambulance providers or charities such as charities such as St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross.

Filippa St Aubin d’Ancey, a spokeswoman for the CCG, said: “We have a facility to transport patients who have booked appointments at hospitals in the county and other out-patient departments. This is usual practice across most areas that the CCG fund non-emergency patient transport (NEPT) in order to ensure that there is a facility available to assist patients in accessing their treatment.

“The reason for the increase in the figures over the last few years is down to the number of patients who use this service, many of whom are living longer with ongoing health conditions. Due to increasing need to access the outpatients’ department patients rely on this service to transport them to and from their appointments.”

The CCG is predicting a deficit of £19.6 million for 2017/18 and needed to make savings of £17 million to reach that figure.

The same question was also posed to West Midlands Ambulance Service, which said it has no contacts with private ambulance firms, but has also used the services of charities.

In February, it was revealed that other ambulance services are increasingly calling in private firms to respond to 999 calls in the latest sign that NHS care providers are struggling to cope with the rising number of patients needing emergency treatment.

The London ambulance service (LAS) has had the biggest increase among England’s 10 regional ambulance trusts. The amount it spent on private ambulance providers soared from £700,000 in 2011 to £10.1m last year.