New ambulances for 55st patients

Ambulances designed to carry patients weighing up to 55 stone (350kg) are to be taken on by an ambulance service.

The three vehicles are part of a £4m investment by Great Western Ambulance Trust which covers the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire area.

The trust investigated claims in June that crews made fun of an overweight woman from Gloucester before she died.

The super-ambulances, which cost about £100,000 each, have a greater capacity and special hydraulic hoists.

They also have firmer suspension and a larger stretcher.

A spokeswoman for the authority said they were due to be delivered in June.

Heavier patients

The larger ambulances will be among a new fleet of 30 vehicles.

The current fleet can cope with people up to 30 stone (190kg) in weight, but the trust said its paramedics were having to cope with increasingly heavier patients.

In June, Great Western Ambulance Trust investigated allegations by a Gloucester man that ambulance staff made fun of his wife before she died.

John Teague said crews spent two hours deliberating how to move his wife Sandra, who weighed 17st 7lb (111kg) and had suffered a heart attack at her home in Podsmead.