'Rude' note left on ambulance sent to emergency

Paramedics dealing with an emergency in Leicester were left a note urging them to "have some consideration" about their parking.

A disgruntled resident left the handwritten message on the ambulance's windscreen after complaining a driveway had been blocked for 45 minutes.

"Please have some consideration where you park the ambulance!" the note said. "This is not the first time."

East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust criticised the "rude" note and said the crew parked as "considerately as possible" in the early hours of the morning.

Lee Brentnall, paramedic and ambulance operations manager for Leicestershire, said: "It is so disappointing to see that a rude note has yet again been left on one of our ambulances.

"This upsets our dedicated ambulance crews when they are trying to help our patients and do their job.

"Leaving a note will not resolve the situation as we are unlikely to see it until we are leaving in the ambulance to take the patient to hospital or to go to our next job."

It is the latest in a series of notes which have attracted attention after being left on ambulances in recent months.

The ambulance trust said the crew had been responding to a genuine emergency and urged members of the public to speak directly to staff rather than leave notes.

Mr Brentnall added: "Our crews are approachable. If you genuinely need to leave your house urgently and we are blocking your access, please come and knock on the door where the emergency is taking place.

"Sometimes we will be able to move the vehicle, for example if we are treating a patient but they do not need both of us there at the time.

"However, there will be times that we are treating someone experiencing a life-threatening and time-critical emergency and moving our ambulance will not be our priority.

"In these cases, you will need to be patient as we try to save someone's life." - Sky News