Cost of private ambulances in Telford revealed
More than £1 million was spent on private ambulances in Telford last year, it has been revealed.
Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group spent £1,265,613 on private ambulances in the financial year 2016 to 2017.
And since 2014 to 2015, it has spent a total of £3,303,992.
It comes after it was revealed that the CCG group in Shropshire has spent more than £8 million on private ambulances since 2013.
Telford and Wrekin CCG holds a contract with a private ambulance Medical Services Limited (MSL). The contract with MSL is for Non- Emergency Patient Transport. The CCG does not use private ambulance companies for emergency, or blue light, calls.
Filippa St Aubin d’Ancey, a spokeswoman for the CCG, said: “We have a facility to transport patients who have booked appointments at hospitals in the county and other out-patient departments. This is usual practice across most areas that the CCG fund non-emergency patient transport (NEPT) in order to ensure that there is a facility available to assist patients who have a medical need for transport to enable them to access their treatment.
“The reason for the increase in the figures over the last few years is down to the number of patients who use this service, patients awareness of the service has increased, many of whom are living longer with ongoing health conditions. Due to patients increasing medical need to access the outpatients’ department patients rely on this service to transport them to and from their appointments.”
Figures released from Shropshire CCG earlier this week show that it spent £3,146,427 on the ambulances in the last financial year alone.
It also has a contract with MSL for non-emergency patient transport.
In the 2013 to 2014 financial year, Shropshire CCG spent a total of 693,472 but that has increased year-on-year, so that the amount spent in 2016 to 2017 was 3,146,427.
The total spent over that time is £8,828,563.
Shropshire CCG is predicting a deficit of £19.6 million for 2017/18 and needed to make savings of £17 million to reach that figure.
Both CCGs have also said they have held contracts with voluntary charities, like St John's Ambulance and the British Red Cross.
