THE number of 999 calls to the ambulance service has risen by nearly a quarter in the past four years.

Research carried out by a health research institute on behalf of the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) investigated the reasons behind the annual rise in ambulance call-outs in the region.

It has revealed that elderly victims of falls caused the most impact on demand, followed by users of adult mental health services.

SWASFT is already using the research findings to improve its service.

It is working with commissioners and stakeholders to develop services for those who are frail and experience a fall. It has also developed a falls strategy and has set up a frailty group to coordinate the work across the 10 counties it serves.

This work involved liaising with care and nursing homes to support patients who are at risk of falling.

The research was led by Dr Daniel Chalk, of the National Institute for Health Research’s Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West (NIHR PenCLAHRC).

He said: “Little work had been done to analyse the reasons behind the rise in ambulance call-outs in the South West, and the request from SWASFT for us to investigate this phenomenon has been timely.

As a consequence, not only have we achieved some clarity about call-out sources where there was none before, we have also identified a situation where, with different parts of the health service working together, we could mitigate a growing area of concern.

“We are delighted that SWASFT has taken the results of our research and used them to engage with commissioners on service development.”

Sarah Black, research and audit manager for SWASFT, added: “If we are to tackle the growing numbers of 999 calls, we need to understand where they are coming from and why, which is why this research is important to us.

“The findings are playing a vital role in our ongoing discussions with commissioners about how we develop our service.”

Professor Ken Stein, deputy director of NIHR PenCLAHRC, praised the research, commenting: “This is an excellent example of the ‘you ask – we research – you do’ model, which sits at the heart of the CLAHRC programme across the country.

“Locally-driven research projects can result in powerful and effective changes to practice and policy, not just in the area where the research has been commissioned, but also further afield where applicable.”