Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there are circumstances in which ambulance services in England should advise those patients who report suffering from a heart attack to call for a taxi to the hospital, rather than seek the assistance of an ambulance.
Ambulance services respond to all heart attack and suspected heart attack cases according to agreed triage protocols. Only in extreme circumstances may a decision be required to advise higher acuity patients to travel to hospital, such as those with suspected heart attacks. This will only be considered where an ambulance resource will not be available in a sufficiently fast timeframe due to extreme and unforeseen levels of local demand and where it is considered clinically appropriate to do so.