January hospital handover delays total 6,000 hours

Ambulance crews lost more than 6,000 hours waiting outside hospitals in Herefordshire and Worcestershire in January due to handover delays.

Emergency services have been "extremely busy", leading to deteriorating ambulance response times, despite more paramedics and vehicles being deployed.

The hours lost, which were across Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT) and Wye Valley NHS Trust, are roughly the same amount as in the whole of the south west region, which stretches from Gloucestershire to Cornwall.

WAHT said improving ambulance handover times was a "priority for us" and it was working with the ambulance service and local health care system to improve care.

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesperson said it would continue working with partners to find ways of reducing handover delays and get to patients "even faster than we do at the moment".

The spokesperson added: "The West Midlands has the worst hospital handover delays in the country, they make up around a third of the entire total.

"Despite that, the statistics show that our service is performing at a very high level with the fourth best performance in the country for category two patients such as those with heart attacks and strokes.

"We recognise there is more that we need to do which is why we have increased the number of paramedics and nurses in our control rooms and have more ambulances and paramedics on the road than ever before."

WAHT said it knew how important it was to get ambulance crews back on the road to deal with urgent calls and was working hard to get patients treated and back home on the same day, or into a hospital bed as quickly as possible.

"Our urgent and emergency care services are extremely busy," a trust spokesperson said.

"Despite our best efforts, this does mean that patients sometimes wait longer than we would like to be seen, and it can take us longer than it should to transfer patients from ambulances into our emergency departments."

The trust asked people to help by using the free NHS 111 number to get urgent advice, or where possible, use alternatives such as GPs, pharmacies and minor injury units.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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