LAS proud to play role supporting The Queen’s funeral

As the nation paid their respects to Her Majesty The Queen over the past week, London Ambulance Service (LAS) staff and volunteers helped ensure Londoners got the care they needed over this historic occasion.

With approximately 250,000 people attending Queen Elizabeth’s lying-in-state over several days and an estimated one million people arriving on Monday for the funeral, the capital was very busy as huge crowds of people arrived to pay their respects.

LAS put plans in place to ensure it could provide the necessary care including a daily surge of up to 300 additional staff across our 999 control rooms and teams on foot in crowded areas to manage the increased demand. More than 1,000 staff overall were involved in our response. Colleagues from neighbouring ambulance services, South Coast Ambulance Service and South East Coast Ambulance Service were also involved in supporting the events and caring for the large crowds.

Between Wednesday last week and Monday afternoon, the Service worked with St John Ambulance treating more than 2,000 people who were in the city for the lying-in-state and the funeral and taking 240 of them to hospital. LAS teams across the capital also remained very busy, with the service taking around 5,500 999 calls each day.

LAS Chief Executive Daniel Elkeles said:

“This past week has been incredibly busy and London Ambulance Service has been very proud to play a role in supporting the country in marking such a moving farewell to The Queen.

“I’d like to thank all our staff and volunteers, St John Ambulance, our emergency service colleagues who were on duty in recent days and for the care you provided for London.”

LAS staff working alongside police colleagues at the Metropolitan police control centre in Lambeth were also thanked by His Majesty The King for their efforts during a royal visit on Saturday morning.

His Majesty King Charles III spoke to police officers, members of the military and our staff involved in different aspects of the unprecedented policing and security operation.

Natasha Wills, Director of Resilience and Specialist Assets, said:

“It was an honour to meet His Majesty. He seemed genuinely pleased to be with us and thanking everyone for the hard work they were doing. It was lovely he spent so much time talking to people at such a difficult time for the Royal Family.”

Patients treated by London Ambulance Service and St John Ambulance [00:00 14/9-  23:59 19/9)

Date	Patients treated	Patients taken to hospital	Total patients (taken to hospital)
Wednesday 14	291	17	291 (17)
Thursday 15	144	25	435 (42)
Friday 16	275	39	710 (81)
Saturday 17	368	55	1,078 (136)
Sunday 18	424	38	1,502 (174)
Monday 19	510	66	2,012 (240)