Health

'Black Friday' Ambulance Crisis

by Paul Conneally | December 18, 2008 at 02:43 pm

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Christmas office party goers are set to swell the already full ambulances of Britain as the Ambulance Service prepares itself for it's own 'Black Friday'.

Office workers all over the country will get drunk, photocopy their behinds and have sex that they won't remember with someone they work with before finishing up in the back of an ambulance on the way to the emergency room.

The NHS is preparing for a surge in demand for emergency services tomorrow, as Christmas parties reach their height on the day ambulance staff have dubbed "Black Friday".

The expected crisis, of an unprecedented level, is due to a combination of ill health brought on by cold weather and over-indulgence at office parties. The party season traditionally causes the year's heaviest volume of 999 calls at the end of the working week before Christmas.

This week, ambulance services across England were already struggling to cope.

Peter Bradley, the national director of ambulance services, said the service was having its busiest week ever. He put it down to the coldest start to a winter for 30 years causing a sharp increase in falls and breathing problems, combined with outbreaks of flu and the winter vomiting bug norovirus.