Ambulance response times are currently the worst on record and the NHS is struggling to cope with a surge in demand this winter.
Sky News joined West Midlands Ambulance Service paramedic Danny Thompson and ambulance technician Dan Fiedler for a 12-hour shift.
7am: Elderly couple ‘too scared’ to call 999
Freezing fog hangs over Coventry as Danny and Dan make sure their radios are charged and vehicle fully stocked before heading out.
It is unusually quiet to begin with, but just before 8am they get their first call.
The patient is an elderly man who has fallen and injured his arm. They switch on the sirens and the blue lights flash as they speed through the fog.
Arriving at the house, they find the patient, 86-year-old Edward, in bed. Norma, his wife, is sitting next to him.
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Edward’s arm is swollen and purple. It turns out he fell two days ago.
“It said on the television only call if it’s a matter of life and death,” Norma tells Danny.
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He tells her to call straight away in future. They’re worried patients who need help have been put off calling by the advice given on strike days.
“People are a bit scared to call ambulances because they think they’re going to be stuck in corridors or in the back of an ambulance,” Dan says.
As they prepare to take Edward, who has advanced Parkinson’s, to A&E – they chat.
Dan asks Edward how long he and Norma have been married. “62 years,” he says. “How did you meet?” Dan asks. “In the pictures,” Edward replies.
“He thinks I’m superwoman,” Norma tells Danny, as she details how they manage without any carers.
But she’s relieved to see the paramedics.
“When I rang my heart sank because they stop halfway through and say use www… we’re not on world wide web,” she says. “I’m not moaning really, it’s just that we haven’t kept up to date with our technology”.
10am: Woman refuses to ‘freeze’ in A&E despite blood clot fear
“Straight in… very unusual,” Danny remarks as they wheel Edward into the A&E department in Coventry where he’ll have an X-ray to check if his arm is broken.
Back outside in the ambulance, their radio beeps to let them know it’s been 12 minutes since they handed Edward over.
That means they’re expected to be ready for the next call.
The next stop is an elderly patient whose district nurse fears could have a blood clot in her leg.
When they get to her house, Rosemary is sitting upstairs.
Her daughter explains they went to A&E a couple of weeks ago and spent hours waiting in a freezing corridor. They don’t want to go back.
After doing some tests Danny and Dan believe it’s fluid and not a blood clot causing the swelling.
They agree to take her to a same-day emergency care unit at the hospital in Nuneaton.
But on their way a category one call comes in. They’re the closest ambulance, so they apologise to Rosemary, switch on blue lights and head in the direction of the call.
A couple of minutes later though, they’re told to stand down.
They continue on their way with Rosemary and apologise for the diversion as they leave her at the hospital.
1pm: Seizure and slow heartbeat dealt with in five minutes
They don’t even get the chance to finish their lunch before another category one call comes in.
The details indicate that an elderly woman is having a seizure.
Inside the house they quickly establish there’s a problem with her heart and it’s serious. She’s already lost consciousness once.
They wheel her into the ambulance and carry out ECG tests. Her heart rate is dropping, there’s a risk it could stop.
Danny calls the hospital in Coventry to tell them to have a team ready.
Machines beep and the patient tells them she’s scared.
Danny and Dan work quickly to stabilise her heart rate. Their reassuring tone as they tell her not to worry contrasts with the urgency of the situation.
They get her to A&E within five minutes. Her heart is still beating, but very slowly.
They’re both just relieved that this wasn’t one of the days they’ve been stuck queuing outside hospital.
“The cardiac condition she had can often result in death if it’s not caught in time,” Danny says.
4pm: Good news but it was close
After completing all their paperwork, they finally get a lunch break at about 4.30pm. They can take half an hour, unless a category one call comes in. They head back to base where Dan joins a small group of colleagues.
After 30 minutes, Danny comes to get him. There’s another call.
Sirens on, they make their way to a house nearby. They can’t be sure the patient doesn’t have a blood clot, so they take her to A&E.
While there they find out the heart patient has had emergency surgery to fit a pacemaker. She’s doing well.
It’s good news to end the day. But they know it was close.
“Things can’t go on as they are,” Danny says. “Because we’re going to see patients suffering as a result of that.”
7pm: 12-hour shift over
It’s rare to finish on time this winter – but on this occasion, they pull back into base exactly 12 hours after their shift began.
They restock the ambulance and wave to the teams taking over, before heading off into the night.
Two horses which bolted and charged through central London are in a “serious condition”, a minister has said.
The Household Cavalry said the animals – which were taking part in what the Army called a “routine exercise” in the Belgravia area on Wednesday – were spooked by builders dropping rubble from a height “right next to them”.
Defence minister James Cartlidge told Sky News on Thursday morning: “There were five horses. They have all been recovered.
“Three of them are fine, two of them are unfortunately in a relatively serious condition and obviously we will be monitoring that condition.”
He added: “They are in a serious condition, but as I understand, still alive.”
The minister also confirmed the names of the two animals, Vida and Quaker.
“This is extremely unlikely, this scenario,” he told LBC.
“Unfortunately we have seen what has happened, but all I can say is the crucial thing… no serious injuries to the public as far as we aware, and of course we will be keeping an eye on the situation.”
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Four service personnel were thrown from their horses and the animals that ran loose smashed into vehicles, including a taxi and a tour bus.
Paramedics treated four people in three separate incidents in Buckingham Palace Road, Belgrave Square, and at the junction of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, in the space of just 10 minutes.
Some of the soldiers were taken to hospital for treatment for their injuries, which were not thought to be serious.
One witness got off a bus and described seeing two horses, one black and the other white, “flying past”.
“The white one was drenched in blood from the chest down and they were galloping through the traffic at speed,” she said.
“People were stopping in the street shocked. The horses were running into fast-moving traffic and seemed terrified. Some unmarked police cars were chasing after them, which didn’t seem to be helping.
“I felt shocked. It was pretty gruesome. Felt like a weird dream.”
The horses were eventually recaptured by City of London Police and taken away to be assessed by Army vets.
The animals are all receiving care from vets at Hyde Park barracks.
Commanding Officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment Lieutenant Colonel Matt Woodward said in a video statement posted on X the unit exercises around 150 horses on the roads and in parks every morning, partly to help desensitise them to city noise.
He said the “shock” of building materials being dropped from a height near them caused the horses to bolt and unseat some riders
He added: “Thankfully, considering the frequency of exercise and numbers of horses involved, this type of incident is extremely rare, we continue to strive to minimise the risk of this recurring.
“As ever we are grateful for due consideration given by the members of the public to not making loud noises around our horses.”
When temperatures hit nearly 22C in parts of England earlier this month, people might have thought that spring had finally sprung.
But with May fast approaching, temperatures have suddenly dropped, forcing some back into their winter coats and others to switch the heating on once again.
So what has caused the mercury to drop to near-freezing in some parts?
According to Sky News weather presenter Jo Wheeler, an area of high pressure to the west of the UK is behind it.
“High pressure to the west of the UK and Ireland gave hopes for a few days of settled weather, even though it was forecast to be a ‘cloudy high’,” she says.
“And that is pretty much what we have seen, although the positioning of the high brought cold northerly winds – and eastern counties can vouch for this.
“The high was also weak enough to allow frontal systems (a collision of cold and warm air) to move through it, so we didn’t see entirely dry weather either.
“And, winds were strong enough to give a significant wind chill along the North Sea coasts, which was pretty bitter.”
However, the next few days could still be relatively cold, particularly overnight on Friday and potentially Saturday, when temperatures in parts of northern and eastern England could drop to near or even below freezing, according to the Met Office.
And while they say temperatures are likely to “trend upwards” from Sunday, rain and cloudier weather is set to dominate next week, particularly in the south.
According to the Met Office’s forecast for next week, there will be drier weather in northern parts of the UK and a chance of rain or even thundery showers for a time in the east.
“Temperatures [are] likely to trend upwards, with the chance of a warm to very warm spell in some southern and eastern parts, before conditions probably turn drier, cooler and more settled from the west towards the end of the period,” they say.
The force, which has faced claims of a botched investigation, has admitted it still has no suspect and no motive two months on from the cold-blooded execution despite 30 officers working to crack the case.
The initial seven-day delay in declaring a murder inquiry is being examined by Scotland’s police watchdog, The Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (Pirc).
Former superintendent Martin Gallagher, who retired from the force in 2022, says there are concerns over the officers who discovered Mr Low’s body and wrote the case off as non-suspicious.
Mr Gallagher told Sky News vital clues could have been lost and the killer may even have returned to the scene given the area was not cordoned off for days.
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He said: “You’ve had officers attend a crime scene who have misidentified what has happened. There are questions to be asked about their ability and about their conduct.
“Police Scotland made a mistake at the start which is very unfortunate, but that happens.
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“Police Scotland will learn from this and hopefully a training programme will be looked at in terms of how we deal with crime scenes initially in terms of homicide.”
Police Scotland refused to take questions from Sky News in an interview.
A spokeswoman said: “The circumstances have been referred by Police Scotland to the Police Investigation and Review Commissioner.
“It would therefore be inappropriate to comment further.”
Officers have visited 478 properties and interviewed more than 800 people in the Perthshire area as part of the probe which is now entering its third month.
Local resident Chris Clear told Sky News he believes officers are examining a theory the suspect may have fled the scene on a bike.
He said: “Yesterday they were asking me if we had bicycles. They are really just looking for people who used the track where Brian was killed.
“Someone has done it. They probably live here. It puts a bad feeling across the whole of the village.”