Reasearch carried out by the London Ambulance Service for the new "No Send" policy has shown that 59% of Londoners think that they will get seen quicker in A+E if they arrive in an ambulance. This...Is...Not...True...
In fact if you come to A+E after calling an ambulance for something minor, the nursing staff will be more inclined to send you out to the waiting room and forget about you.
Also Londoners call for three times the number of ambulances for "flu" than any other English city. Half the time the patient has got a cold and not the flu at all, and just needs to work it out of their system. Even if they did have the 'flu, there is little the hospital could do for them anyway.
Coupled with high population densities, lack of staff, "sleeping policemen" everywhere and heavy traffic and is it any wonder we are having trouble hitting the eight minute deadline we have to make 75% of calls in?