The ambulance service that serves Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire is under “immense pressure” with the trust getting almost 2,000 calls a day to 999 - and hospital admissions facing greater delays due to “capacity issues”.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) said it would normally see around 1,600 calls to the emergency number a day - but the current activity is more in line with winter numbers.

Bosses have also said the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the region is a “concern” to the service “given current levels of activity”, and that the time taken to hand patients over to hospitals is on the rise “due to capacity issues” at some hospitals in the south-central region.

The number of calls to urgent medical advice line NHS 111 are also at more than 4,500 a day – up from 3,000 a day pre-pandemic – SCAS revealed.

A spokesman said: “The rise in demand has been largely unrelated to Covid-19 so far, though the increasing number of cases in the region is a concern to the service given current levels of activity – as is the resilience of staff across the organisation.”

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Mark Ainsworth, director of operations at SCAS, added: “The trust is experiencing immense pressure on services due to intense demand on both 999 and 111, while capacity issues at some of our hospitals are impacting on our ability to handover our patients immediately upon arrival which restricts our ability to respond to waiting patients in a timely manner.

“Our activity is now well above the seasonal predicted level and is more in line with the numbers we would be seeing over the busy New Year period when dealing with winter illnesses, consequences of festivities and people who have delayed accessing healthcare over Christmas.

“We are also now at a point where staff have been flat out managing the effects of the pandemic for 18 months, so they are feeling the strain in the face of relentless pressure.”

SCAS says it has taken a number of actions to increase capacity to meet demand, including the redeployment of clinically-trained staff into frontline operational roles, training additional staff to work in the 111 call centre and additional resources from approved private ambulance providers.

And with high pressure on both the 999 and 111 services, people are being urged to make sure they only call 999 for life-threatening emergencies and 111 for urgent medical advice, while making use the full range of other services for less urgent problems including 111.nhs.uk, urgent treatment centres, GPs and pharmacies.

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Mr Ainsworth continued: “We will continue to provide the best possible care to all of our patients, but we would appreciate any efforts people can make to think carefully about alternatives available for less urgent problems.

“There are still many occasions when we receive calls from patients who could have their needs met through urgent treatment centres or their GPs, sometimes even pharmacies, so we would greatly appreciate the support of the public while we manage this period of intensity.”

He added: “I also want to send a message of thanks to all of our staff and volunteers for continuing to provide quality care in challenging circumstances – we are incredibly proud of them.”