AMBULANCES with patients already on board could be asked to divert to more urgent calls.

But the measure, being introduced by the East of England Ambulance Service, has been met with serious concerns for patient care and pressure on paramedics.

The ambulance trust insists the measure is “entirely focused on those with life-threatening injuries”.

Paramedics with a clinically stable patient on board who are driving close to a life-threatening, Category One incident, would be asked to stop to give immediate medical assistance until another ambulance arrives.

Sam Older, regional organiser for Unison, said members’ concerns centred around their professional registration being called into question as well as risks to patient confidentiality and cross-contamination on ambulances.

He added: “Whose decision is it that someone picks up a second patient? It is your professional judgement.

“It is also about understanding how the trust are in a situation as well because of the numbers of staff and numbers of vehicles they have and the demand.

“We are working the trust to try to increase the amount of staff and number of ambulances available which might remove the need for this.”

Mr Older said the policy was first mentioned to staff in August but little detail was provided.

But more details came to light in the national press.

East of England Ambulance Service medical director Dr Tom Davis said: “In such rare circumstances, it is absolutely right the crew are contacted to assess if it is clinically safe for the patient on board, if the crew were to stop at the incident and give immediate life-saving care before the arrival of the next closest ambulance or car.”

A trust spokesman added: “It is entirely right that we make these decisions with the clinicians involved. It is OK for them to say no.

“Clinicians would only be expected to divert to a Category One incident to give immediate assistance for those few minutes until another ambulance arrives.

“It would be at the discretion of each clinical crew to decide whether their patient’s welfare would be unduly jeopardised by diverting to the Category One incident.”

He insisted patients would never share one ambulance.

He said: “Most of our ambulances contain a wide range of modern equipment for assessing and treating patients on the scene, and cannot transport more than one stretchered patient at a time.”

The service is among the worst performing for ambulance response times.

He said the measure was until the right numbers of staff and vehicles were in place following more funding from clinical commissioning groups.

“This long term plan, therefore, needs support of a shorter term plan, entirely focused on those with life-threatening injuries.”

Last month the trust’s chief executive Robert Morton resigned following years of criticism over staffing shortages, emergency response times and ambulance delays.