LAS has been forced to declare a ‘business continuity incident due to demand on 999 and 111 services we can reveal. Over 500 emergency calls are waiting to be answered this evening Monday 19th December 2022 with reports from a source that no ambulances are available to answer them. Paramedics are already responding to more than 200 immediately life-threatening red calls. The increased demand, along with icy weather conditions and lengthy delays at hospitals across London, means that demand for the service exceeded its capacity to respond. As a result, the service has been forced to declare a rare ‘business continuity incident’ – an event or occurrence that disrupts or might disrupt, an organisation’s normal service delivery, where special arrangements are required to be implemented until services can return to an acceptable level. The source revealed that It’s rare that we declare a business continuity incident and we do not take the decision lightly. Extreme weather, coupled with a high call volume focused on falls and breathing issues, has limited our capacity to respond safely and timely.  

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said:

“We have declared a ‘business continuity incident’ due to the high demand across our 999 and 111 services.

“In recent days, we have been taking up to 7,000 999 calls every day compared to a pre-pandemic busy day of 5,500 calls.

“We are doing everything we can to prioritise our sickest and most severely injured patients and would like to remind the public that if they need urgent medical advice that does not require an emergency ambulance to go to NHS111 online or call 111 for advice and support.”

Business continuity is about making sure everything is in place so that our service runs as smoothly as possible.

It involves building and improving the resilience of our organisation so that whatever may come our way, ambulance crews can reach patients as quickly as possible.