East of England Ambulance: Potential serious incidents investigated

Forty potential serious incidents have been reported by staff to an ambulance service at the centre of claims that patients died after delays.

The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) said the "unusually high number" of reports were made between 18 December and 3 January.

An EEAS spokesman said the trust was reviewing all the cases to find out if the "patients came to any harm".

Some cases may have been "caused by delays in reaching patients", he said.

The comments from the EEAS follow claims last week by Norwich South MP Clive Lewis that 20 people had died after ambulances arrived late.

The EEAS spokesman said: "In the three week period in question, on just one day our ambulance crews spent more than 117 hours waiting to hand over patients to the care of hospitals.

"This of course has a detrimental knock-on effect on the number of crews we have on the road ready to respond to other 999 emergencies.

"We know our findings will likely show that a number of these incidents were caused by delays in reaching patients."

The spokesman said the trust "welcome the fact that our staff continue to highlight cases and report incidents that may have been a near miss or resulted in harm to a patient".

"It is only by reporting such incidents and investigating them that we can take the learning and use this to help us continue improving the care we give to our patients in the future," he added.

On Monday, Health Minister Steve Barclay told the Commons that claims against EEAS had been raised with senior NHS officials.

He said NHS England and NHS Improvement are meeting with the Care Quality Commission to discuss concerns at a "risk summit".