Cumbria's ambulance chiefs have spent more than £17m on ambulances and staff from private providers since April 2015.

The money has been spent across the entire region covered by the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS).

And it has gone to a number of firms while charities such as the St John Ambulance, British Red Cross and even mountain rescue squads have also provided support.

Trust chiefs have insisted that the service is safe with its trained call handlers dispatching “well trained and expert crews” to appropriate calls.

A spokesman said: “Like other ambulance trusts throughout the country, we have partnerships with voluntary agencies that help us to deliver our service.

“This includes working with well trained and expert crews from organisations such as mountain rescue teams, the Red Cross and St John Ambulance.

“We have worked with the organisations for many years and we do call upon them during periods of high 999 demand, such as busy winter periods or during severe weather conditions when we need temporary additional resource support."

The spokesman added private crews usually attend patients with a lower acuity who may not need the specialist care of paramedics.

He added: “We are facing a significant demand for our service and the use of external ambulances helps to provide back-up to our existing resources so that our emergency ambulance crews are free to get to those in most need.”

The North West Ambulance Service provides ambulances in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire as well as the NHS 111 advice line.

It is struggling to meet an escalating number of 999 calls made to its centres every day.

The situation is worsened by a chronic shortage of paramedics, particularly in Cumbria.

Staff shortages, particularly in north Cumbria, were recently flagged up by national watchdog the Care Quality Commission, which gave the trust a "requires improvement" rating.

As a result, independently run companies and voluntary aid organisations attended 35,213 incidents on behalf of NWAS in 2015/16 and a further 33,576 between April and December last year.

Labour’s John Woodcock, MP for Barrow and Furness, has called for a review of ambulance cover across the north west.

Mr Woodcock said: “There should be a proper review into ambulance cover in the North West to establish the extent of the problem and put in place a strategy to provide proper ambulance cover across the region.”