A private ambulance company that provided non-emergency transport for NHS patients to reach hospital appointments has suddenly ceased trading.

SVL Healthcare Services sent out text messages late on Tuesday night telling staff to cease operations immediately and promising more information would follow.

But since then, staff at the Dartford-based company whose operational base is at Stone Castle in Greenhithe have heard no more.

It is believed the firm employed around 390 staff including drivers, office and support staff.

Andria Meyer had been employed as an ambulance driver for the the past 18 months.

She said: “We are all in shock and very worried whether we will receive our pay due this Friday.

“Many of us live month by month and some people will be unable to pay their mortgages or rents now.

“I personally was also due 56 hours overtime pay which I suppose I will never see now.”

Ms Meyer said staff had been given no information as to whether the company was in administration or liquidation.

She said: ”We’ve heard nothing. I’m worried for the patients we used to pick up. I was doing about 10 transfers a day!

“The renal patients have to go to hospital three times a week. How will they get there now?”

Drivers from the Stone Castle base served hospitals as disparate as the Princess Royal in Bromley, Queen Mary Hospital in Sidcup, and the London hospitals of Kings, Guys and St Thomas’.

The firm had also just a month ago picked up a contract to provide ambulance services to hospitals in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, which have also ceased.

According to reports by the BBC, the NHS integrated care board there was told by SVL it had ceased trading on Tuesday (August 27) and had entered into administration.

Andrew Creasey, 53, had been a driver for a year with the firm in Kent. He too was angry for the way staff had been treated - and for the effect on the people they served.

He said: “Patients will have been put at risk.”

The company had failed to register its last set of accounts with Companies House.

Gary Mitchell, who worked in a high dependency unit for the firm transferring patients who need medical care during the journey, was told to down tools mid-shift.

He had been taking a patient from an examination at Kings College Hospital back to a ward at the Princess Royal Hospital in Orpington, when he received a text telling him to stop working.

Gary said: “We should have known something was going wrong.

“For the past six days our fuel cards stopping working, and then a few days later the tracker system on the ambulances stopped too.”

KentOnline has since heard from another former worker who says they’d had no confirmation as to whether they will get paid for the last two months having not had pay slips today (August 30).

A spokesman for the King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “SVL Healthcare Services have a contract to provide non-emergency patient transport services for King’s, as well as Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

“On Tuesday evening, SVL informed both trusts that they would be unable to provide these services from Wednesday onwards.

“Our staff have worked tirelessly to ensure continuity of service for our patients, and we are working at pace to identify a long-term alternative provider of these services.

“We would like to apologise to the small number of patients whose appointments have had to be re-scheduled as a result of this week’s events.

“We are continuing to provide non-emergency patient transport services for our patients, and our teams are doing everything they possibly can to ensure the disruption to patients is kept to a minimum.”

A spokesperson for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said: “Thanks to the phenomenal work of our patient transport team, who worked through Tuesday night making alternative arrangements, over 95% of our patient journeys on Wednesday went ahead as planned.

“We apologise to the small number of patients whose appointments have been rescheduled as a result of changes to their healthcare transport services.

“We are continuing to provide non-emergency patient transport services for our patients, and our teams are working hard to ensure the disruption to patients is kept to a minimum.”

SVL has not responded to requests for comment.