Ambulance chiefs warn lives would be at risk if GPs always rang 999

GPs have threatened to resort to the measure because they say their patients are not being admitted quickly enough.

The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust has said if the threat is carried out, emergency services could be brought to a standstill.

However, delegates at a British Medical Association in Wales conference voted to allow GPs to consider the move.

The meeting at Usk, south Wales on Saturday was overwhelmingly in favour, according to a BMA spokesman.

What we're saying is if doctors cannot get patients though the front door of a hospital for whatever reason, then they should consider this option BMA in Wales spokesman

"GPs have a duty of care to their patients to get them into hospital as soon as possible."

He added that they believed the move would help the ambulance service.

"What we're saying is if doctors cannot get patients though the front door of a hospital for whatever reason, then they should consider this option".

Ambulance service chiefs have said making routine calls 999 emergencies would cause them "major disruption".

On Thursday, Don Page, Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust, warned of "dire consequences" if GPs began routinely calling 999 instead of arranging a non-emergency medical admission.

The threatened action would result in the emergency ambulance service coming to a complete standstill and unable to respond to real emergencies and life threatening calls, he said.

Dr Millington said GPs had their own responsibility toward patients

GPs from Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot had put forward the motion suggesting family doctors should use the 999 system to fast-track people who were ill to a hospital ward bed.

Their organisation, Morgannwg Local Medical Committee, claims non-emergency patients who need to be taken to hospital are too often left waiting at home or in doctors' surgeries.

Committee secretary Dr Ian Millington said medics had a responsibility to ensure patients went to hospital "within a reasonable time".

He said the issue was a symptom of an apparent bed shortage in hospitals along the M4 corridor in Wales.

He said GPs made a clinical judgement about when someone should be admitted and they should not have to reconsider that decision because of pressures elsewhere in the NHS.

'Considerable pressure'

"We can't abrogate our responsibilities as professionals because the ambulance service has problems unloading at hospitals.

"The problem is beyond the ambulance service as well. It relates to the trusts. It appears to be a capacity confinement along the M4 corridor."

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: "Hospitals along the M4 corridor have experienced a very busy start to 2005 with some periods of considerable pressure.

"Different views exist as to whether more beds are needed. The recent Audit Commission report, for example, suggested that better use needed to be made of existing bed capacity.

"The assembly government keeps this issue regularly under review and is keen to listen to the views of all stakeholders."