RISING levels of obesity have led health chiefs to convert an ambulance so it can carry massively overweight patients.

The specially converted vehicle, which is believed to be the first of its type in the country, was unveiled against a background of increasing levels of morbidly obese patients in the county.

Managers at South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust invested in the vehicle, complete with specially built trolleys, to protect staff from injuring themselves when manoeuvring obese patients.

The vehicle will also help ambulance staff deal with a rising number of call-outs to patients requiring weight-loss surgery.

Doug Sinclair, head of patient transport services, claimed the vehicle was the first of its kind in the country.

He said members of the London Ambulance Service were coming to look at the new addition to the fleet next week.

Mr Sinclair added that the number of calls to seriously obese patients had increased from approximately one or two a week to six or seven a week over the last two years.

Normal ambulances can only transport patients who weigh up to 20 stone, but the converted vehicle is large enough to transport two ‘bariatric’ trolleys capable of moving patients of any weight up to 55 stone, including the trolley.

Mr Sinclair said: “This is the only one we think that can take more than one bariatric patient at once.

“It’s only something that’s come to the fore in the ambulance service in the last three to four years.

“We have a duty to protect our staff and we have to supply the right vehicles.

He added: “Mainly it’s for the health and safety of the staff and the dignity and respect of the patient.

“Before, we were just managing and using inadequate equipment for the weight involved.”

Hospitals in Oxford have seen a ten-fold increase in the numbers of patients admitted because of weight loss surgery or weight-related conditions – 52 in 2009/10, compared to five five years ago.

It cost £5,000 to convert the old ambulance.

It has been fitted with a 1,000kg tail lift capable of accommodating the largest bariatric hospital bed.

The ambulance also has an onboard winch and there is room to transport the special wheelchairs needed to move seriously obese patients.

Mr Sinclair said: “We have had some very large people who we have had to move.”

Ambulance care assistant Nicky Sweeney said: “It will be useful because it gives patients the dignity and comfort they expect and deserve.”

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