‘SERIOUS incidents’ involving ambulances have risen by 87% in the past five years.

Freedom of information responses show there were 43 Serious incidents (SIs) in 2016/17, compared to 23 in 2012/13.

One incident in 2015-16 saw a North West ambulance patient die after vital medical equipment was found to be "missing from the ambulance"

Nationally, the number of SIs rose in seven of England’s ten ambulance areas, with an overall rise of 12% in five years from 460 reported events in 2012/13 to 513 in 2016/17.

The NHS define ‘Serious incidents’ (SIs) as ‘adverse events’ which need a ‘heightened level of response’.

Unions have blamed funding cuts for the rise and the “enormous strain” facing ambulance workers.

Glenn Harrison, lead convenor for public service union UNISON, said: “There are more pressures on ambulance workers due to funding cuts.

“This has led to a lack of staff and a high workload with an enormous amount of strain on workers, inevitably leading to mistakes being made.”

Mike Buoey, a GMB organiser for the North West said: "I am saddened but not shocked by the figures, of which I put a lot down to cutbacks in the NHS."

But a spokesman for the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), which represents all ten English NHS ambulance trusts, said that ambulance calls have increased by 21 per cent since 2013/14 to 11.2 million in 2016/17.

“It is therefore inevitable that we will see a rise in serious incidents in line with the workload increase,” said a spokesperson for AACE.

A spokesperson for North West Ambulance Service said: “Incidents of this nature are taken very seriously by the trust and each one is fully investigated to determine what has happened and what lessons can be learnt going forward.

“We have noticed an increase in serious incidents over the past five years and we believe that this is down to a number of factors. Changes to the Serious Incident Framework were implemented in April 2015 and as an organisation we make an effort to encourage our staff to report incidents wherever possible, even if they may only seem small.

“Operationally, we have seen a rise in the number of emergencies that we attend and the introduction of the 111 service also increases the number of patients that we work with.

“We pride ourselves on care and compassion and work hard to make sure that we are delivering the best care possible for our patients.”

The FOI request was lodged by the BBC.