Bosses take action as calls to 999 surge

Training was cancelled and staff holidays restricted as ambulance staff moved to cope with a 'massive increase' in demand.

Successive weekends in June saw rises of 12, 13 and 15 per cent in incidents, compared to a year earlier.

Chiefs said the demand was only comparable with weekends when there has been heavy snow.

Bosses say there is no particular reason for the increase other than more people just trying to use the service.

The seriousness of the situation was upgraded to level 4, on a scale where one means no urgency and five is the most serious.

The Resourcing Escalating Action Plan was put in place for two weeks at the end of June.

It comes as 300 staff are gradually introduced into the trust from a recruitment drive that was launched 18 months ago.

Bosses said demand was particularly high in out-of-hours periods, i.e. evenings and weekends.

Latest available figures show that on June 20 to 22, 8,432 incidents were responded to by the service.

A year earlier it was just 7,358.

Demand had been rising for two months at a rate 'far above' what bosses were expecting.

Acting emergency services director Nathan Hudson said: "The decision to move to REAP Level 4 sends a very clear message to the rest of the health community that we are under pressure.

"We have seen a growth in the number of handover delays at hospitals so will be monitoring them even more closely so that crews can be freed up as soon as possible.

"The first of the 300 new staff are beginning to come through and that number will continue to grow over the coming weeks."

Cases of breathing difficulties and chest pains have increased with the recent warmer weather.

A monthly staff briefing for West Midlands Ambulance Service reads: "The only weekends that have been busier were when the region was blanketed in a thick layer of snow.

"Demand has been rising rapidly for over two months at a rate that is far above what would have been expected."

In May a surge of calls 10 per cent up on the weeks before it were made to the service due to hot weather, when temperatures reached 25C (77F) in the West Midlands

Earlier this year the ambulance trust which runs the service was fined £2.6million for failing to hit one of its key targets for reaching some patients with life threatening conditions.