Deaths linked to ambulance delays increase 37-fold since 2020 in one of England's worst regions

The number of deaths linked to ambulance delays has increased 37-fold in less than two years at one of England's worst-performing regions.

A Freedom of Information request by BBC Newsnight revealed a sharp rise in the number of patients who have died after emergency crews at the West Midland Ambulance Service were late to reach them.

Across England, ambulances have been falling short of performance targets, in part because they are ending up stuck in queues outside accident and emergency units.

During the whole of 2020, one patient had died by the time a delayed crew from the West Midlands Ambulance Service arrived.

This year - up until the end of September - that number had already soared to 37, the analysis showed.

During that same period, there were 286 serious incidents of avoidable harm caused by problems with care recorded by the trust, according to the BBC.

This is up more than 400 per cent compared with the year before and more than half of these were directly attributed to ambulance delays.

West Midlands Ambulance Service told the BBC it was working very hard to prevent delays, but it depended on other parts of the health service admitting patients quickly.

Darren Childs from Ludlow had to wait 47 minutes for an ambulance to arrive when his daughter stopped breathing in January.

She survived, but Mr Childs now campaigns on the issue and told the BBC: "Since January. The stories have gone from we waited three, four hours to five, six hours to eight, nine hours. I think that the NHS isn't just in crisis anymore.

"I think the NHS is failing and we are losing the NHS and I think that this winter's pressures are going to be the thing that topples the NHS over."

GMB union members at West Midlands Ambulance Service will be among those to walk out in strikes across the country.

Paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff will strike on Wednesday, Dec 21, and Wednesday, Dec 28.

NHS A&E consultant: There are times I feel I can't provide safe service

An NHS consultant in paediatrics spoke to the BBC anonymously, and said: "What we're seeing at the moment really is unprecedented levels of activity throughout A&E departments.

"I've been a consultant for years now and I've really never seen things as bad as this.

"You walk through the department, I work at a paediatric A&E department.

"Sometimes you can barely move for all the patients in the waiting area nowhere to sit. People standing holding their children in corridors.

"And sometimes even when we managed to move staff from other areas. There isn't a physical place to see them.

"My colleagues and I are working so incredibly hard and morale is at an all time low. There are times when I'm in the A&E department and I don't feel that I'm able to provide the safe service that I want to and that's really demoralising for me.

"You feel like you have to cut corners, firefight and I know my colleagues across the NHS are working incredibly hard and they're not alone. This is a problem everywhere.

"This is a crisis. People are working so hard to try and avert a crisis at every point. But there will be mistakes made and there will be things that couldn't have been avoided unfortunately because of the levels of activity people are having to deal with.

"It doesn't feel like a joy to work in the NHS anymore and we need to redress that immediately because we're losing staff.

"People don't want to work like this and sacrifice time with their own families. They're human beings after all, and they are on their knees."