My 12-hour shift with a London ambulance crew

Ambulance staff are striking, citing record pressures, low wages and the NHS in crisis — so what’s the reality on the ground?

- Katie Strick

IT SOUNDS like something you’d hear in an episode of 24 Hours in A&E — “999 mode activated.” But for London ambulance workers Omar and Llamar, it is the soundtrack to their working day.

“We’ll look after you,” emergency medical technician (EMT) Llamar tells a tearful septuagenarian on her way to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, holding her hand as we weave through the west London traffic. Understandably, the patient, Margot*, is scared. She doesn’t like hospitals but she’s just been told she might have sepsis and has been struggling to breathe for six days. “We’re getting you to hospital quickly because you’re showing signs,” Llamar tells her over the sound of the siren. “Don’t be too scared, OK? Your oxygen’s really good, you’re still managing on your own.”

Llamar and his colleague carry Margot down the ambulance ramp and join a queue for the rapid assessment room inside the hospital. “Thank you, Llamar, you look after us so well,” says Catherine*, a neighbour who’s accompanying Margot to hospital. Llamar smiles and puts his hand up. It’s not the first time he’s been thanked that day. On an earlier job, Damiana Louis, 65, a Grenfell survivor living in a flat in Ladbroke Grove, thanks Llamar and his colleague for being faster than any doctor she’s tried to get hold of in recent months. “You are good men, you know,” she calls after them as they descend the stairs to her flat. “I hope your bosses are paying you enough”.