** UK ambulance trust asks overworked paramedics to volunteer their time to respond to calls
UNITED KINGDOM NEWS
** Already overworked paramedics working for the East of England Ambulance Service are being asked to voluntarily respond to calls in their spare time. That is the word from the BBC (Matt Precey/July 20) which said the aim of the proposal is to improve both response times and hospital survival rates. According to the news service, a pilot of the idea will be run in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, using medics with level four qualification or above. An unnamed paramedic working for the service, however, criticized the idea, saying medics are already run off their feet while on shift. He said doing the same work without pay would be unlikely to fly.
