The Whittington Hospital

A PARCEL delivery giant that has an NHS contract to take patients to and from north London’s main diabetes treatment centre has come under fire following a series of “no-show ambulances”.

DHL provides transport for Islington diabetes patients to and from the Mary Rankin Dialysis Unit in St Pancras Way.

Dialysis patients – who typically spend four hours at the centre three days every week– are being left waiting for two hours to be picked up in ambulances and taken home.

DHL, which has just agreed a two year extension to its contract for the service, also provides patient transport for Whittington hospital patients.

Michael Padfield, a former Fleet Street printer and tenant rep at the Mersey Estate in Holloway, said: “They are absolutely useless. We are treated like cattle. They should stick with parcels. They should put the contract under review. We are often waiting up to two hours.”

The 74-year-old had to retire due to arthritis and was also diagnosed with diabetes and kidney failure. He said he was not healthy enough to take public transport to the Mary Rankin unit. He had considered taking Ubers, but this would be expensive three times a week.

Speaking about his dialysis routine, he said: “You lay on a bed on the machine for 3- 4 hours. It can be really exhausting. During the treatment, your blood pressure goes down. Sometimes it goes down too low. You get very tired.

“Then the nurses come round to the reception and they see what time you’re finishing and they give all the times to a receptionist. Then DHL makes a decision about when they can turn up. You get 20 minutes to clear out of the ward and then you’re just waiting in the reception area for them to arrive.

“There is a good friendly man on reception dealing with all this. The staff there are wonderful, you can’t blame any of them.”

In July 2019, DHL was awarded the patient transport contract for the Whittington, North Middlesex, Moorfields and the Royal Free hospitals, which runs the diabetes treatment centre in St Pancras . The Whittington patient transport contract was worth around £75million in NHS funds alone.

The Tribune reported in 2022 on complaints from patients including Mary Wash, who said she had missed “well over 20 appointments” because transport often turns up late or not at all. Islington Healthwatch had received several complaints and there were calls to bring the service back in house.

A Royal Free spokesman said: “We continue to work closely with our patient transport provider DHL to improve waiting times and to ensure they deliver an effective service.”

A DHL spokesperson said: “We would like to express our sincere apologies for this experience. This does not reflect our usual standard of service, which is very high.”