Ambulance service spends millions on taxis

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The North West Ambulance Service has spent £9.9million on taxis since April 2008, figures from a BBC Freedom of Information request have revealed.

The spend relates to more than 500,000 journeys and is the highest spend revealed by the FOI.

The Service has however said they are in the process of reducing their reliance on taxis, the BBC reported.

In a statement, Delwyn Wray, Director of Patient Transport Service at NWAS, said: “North West Ambulance Service is the biggest provider of patient transport services in the UK, with over 2.3 million patient journeys per year, covering a population of over seven million people.

“To enable the Trust to deliver a timely and responsive service, particularly in surges of demand, there are times when it is necessary to use third party transport providers to supplement the fleet.

“This year the patient transport service is undergoing a modernisation programme in conjunction with new national eligibility criteria, set by commissioners, which ensures that only those with a genuine medical need can access the service.

“These factors, together with an aim to provide taxis for renal outpatients only, due to the treatment taking place out of core hours, have resulted in a considerable reduction in taxi expenditure over the last year, without compromising patient care.

“Taxis were used for less than 6 per cent of patient transport journeys in the first part of this year, compared with almost 10 per cent of journeys in 2010/11.”