AMBULANCES with patients already on board will be asked to divert to more urgent calls in order to save lives.

The East of England Ambulance Services NHS Trust claims the measure is “entirely focused on those with life-threatening injuries”.

It comes after years of the service struggling with the number of emergencies it has to deal with and struggling to increase the number of paramedics it employs.

The radical move would involve paramedics with a clinically stable patient on board, who are driving close to a life-threatening, “category one” incident, being asked to stop to give immediate medical assistance until another ambulance arrives.

The service is among the worst performing for ambulance delays.

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 okay for them to say no.

“Clinicians would only ever be expected to divert to a C1 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 stable patient’s welfare would be unduly jeopardised by diverting to the C1 incident.”

But he insisted patients would never share one ambulance, adding :“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.”

A spokesman said the temporary measure would be while the service is short on ambulances and staff. The service has been short of ambulances and staff for several years.