Due to the national shortage of paramedics, armed police are reportedly having to attend to people having cardiac arrests. Patients are being put at risk by understaffing as the NHS faces its “greatest workforce crisis in history.”
According to the claim, this has resulted in firearms officers becoming the “first, last, and only resort” because ambulances “can’t cope” with the demand.
Police are spending up to a third of their time away from serious crime on non-policing callouts. This includes responding to mental health emergencies and transporting people to the emergency room.
Andy Cooke, the HM chief inspector of constabulary, stated that they have been responding to NHS colleagues’ pleas to respond to heart attacks.
‘Recently, officers in armed response vehicles (ARVs) were sent to reports of people having cardiac arrests because the ambulance service couldn’t keep up, because they’re trained in first aid and how to use defibrillators,’ he said.
‘The ambulance service called the police and said, “We have this heart patient and we don’t have anyone to send.”
The police will go because they are the first, last, and only option. They did indeed leave, but this obscures the problems we have in the rest of the system.’
Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney, the national lead for local policing, emphasised that this reduces the police’s ability to combat crime and protect citizens.
‘It can also put officers in situations where they are forced to make decisions that, despite their best efforts, they are not best placed to make,’ she added.