Ambulance services in England have experienced a mass exodus of staff in the past year with nearly 7,000 leaving their jobs, figures have revealed.
The number of emergency service crew leavers has risen sharply compared with 2019 levels, prompting concern for patient safety during the next NHS winter crisis.
The government has been called on to launch an urgent recruitment drive before winter to cover the 2,954 vacancies across all ambulance services in England.
The figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, show that in 2019-20 the number of people who left ambulance services was 4,609. That has risen in the years since, with 6,968 members of staff walking out of the doors in 2022-23, an increase of 51.2%.
Staff turnover rates are just as high, as data reveals ambulance trusts across the south of England and the West Midlands are struggling to retain employees.
West Midlands ambulance service lost more than 1,000 members of staff in the past year, with a turnover rate of 14%, the party’s figures revealed. South Central ambulance service and South East Coast ambulance service lost 927 and 802 staff in the last year respectively, at turnover rates of 21% and 18%.
Yorkshire ambulance service has the highest vacancy rate, with more than 17% of positions unfilled and a shortfall of 1,157 staff. South Central ambulance service has a staff shortage of 869, giving it a vacancy rate of 16%.
The Liberal Democrats are calling for ministers to investigate the rise in paramedics leaving the ambulance service and to launch a drive to retain, recruit and train paramedics and other ambulance service staff to fill the gaps.
Daisy Cooper, the party’s health and social care spokesperson, said: “This Conservative government has run our health services into the ground and these figures show that paramedics are voting with their feet.
“With patients struggling to see a GP at the front door of the NHS and unable to access social care at the back door of the NHS, ambulance crews are unfairly caught between a rock and a hard place, picking up the slack from a health and care system that is broken at both ends.
“Patients who struggle to access the care they need, when they need it, are then left waiting for emergency assistance in pain and distress for an ambulance. The shortage of NHS staff has caused untold pain for millions of people across the country, especially those left to wait for hours in pain for an ambulance to arrive.
“Paramedics perform heroics every day, but the pressures of a broken system are piling up. With warnings that the government is unprepared for the next winter crisis, ambulance services need help now.
“The government must begin an urgent recruitment drive before winter begins and our ambulance services are yet again put under unsustainable strain. There is no time to waste.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are boosting the number of paramedics by up to 15,600 by 2031-2032 as part of the first ever NHS long term workforce plan, backed by over £2.4bn over the next five years and there are around 700 more paramedics in the NHS than last year.””
