EMERGENCY ambulances are being used as taxis to transfer patients to and from Hampshire hospitals, the Daily Echo can reveal.

In a desperate bid to reduce waiting lists, hospitals are increasingly discharging or transferring patients out of hours, meaning the only transport available is the county's ambulances.

A Patient Transport Service is commissioned by the hospitals, but only runs during the day and, if a patient is being transferred to another hospital, an ambulance is often needed. The issue was having a marked effect on response times, but latest figures show staff have worked hard to bring the figures back up.

Government targets state that at least 75 per cent of life-threatening, or category A, calls must be met within eight minutes.

During February the figure for Hampshire Ambulance Service stood at just 70 per cent, but the trust has now reached the target for category A, as well as categories B and C, consistently for the last two weeks.

But the transport issue remains an on-going problem.

Trust communications manager Frances Griffiths said "There's an intermediate care ambulance here which can be used but obviously it's not an inexhaustable resource.

"If that's used up we have to use whatever we've got and sometimes that's an emergency ambulance.

"Obviously they try to get patients out because that gets more treated and it's a case of balancing the numbers. We end up transferring patients at a time when we would prefer not to do so."

She added: "If someone is treated in A and E and they're ready to go home it's better to have them taken home than have them sitting at the hospital.

"They may not be well enough for public transport or have a family member who can take them home and patient transport is only commissioned for during the day."

Jim Barnett, a member of the ambulance union the Joint Shop Stewards Committee, confirmed that the issue was a problem.

He added: "It's one of many issues."

Spokeswoman for Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust Marilyn Kay said: "We've been exceedingly busy all this year.

"If we can transfer anyone out to a nursing home or a community hospital that enables us to admit somebody in greater need and that's what we have to do."

She added that hospital representatives were working with the ambulance service to try to find a better solution.