Ambulance crews are wasting “significant” amounts of time being called out unnecessarily to prisons across England, the health safety watchdog has said. One NHS trust told investigators it dealt with 5,000 calls to 999 from prison staff across its region in 2023. Overall the research found that almost three in four calls from prisons did not need an ambulance response, compared with one in eight calls from the general population.
The Department of Health said it was “essential” that an ambulance was called only when there was a serious concern about the health of the prisoner. On one occasion, several crews, including an air ambulance, were dispatched to an “unresponsive” inmate who was thought to be unconscious, the watchdog said. On arrival they found the patient was simply refusing to answer questions.
One anonymous paramedic told investigators that “we waste vital time driving to a prison for a call which then gets cancelled, and we’ve just added that time on to the response to someone who [really] needs us”. The report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) found that prisons often encouraged a “low-risk response” when inmates were injured or fell ill. Some prison control rooms were told to call 999 immediately and then wait for an on-site nurse to examine the patient, and then stand down the ambulance if it was not needed.
High turnover and a lack of training meant that prison staff first on the scene of a medical emergency tende.