‘Officers in armed response vehicles, who are trained in first aid and defibrillators, are being pulled away from tackling crime to to mental health crises and transport cardiac arrest patients to A&E.
Mr Barclay called for bold decisions on staffing to be made now, before Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss are appointed as Prime Minister next month, or it will be ‘too late’ to save struggling hospitals.
The NHS crisis has seen the backlog for routine hospital treatment soar to a record 6.6million and A&E performance plunge to a record low — with more than 700,000 Britons waiting more than 12 hours so far this year.
There have also been record ambulance response and handover waits. ‘
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