Patients forced to wait for 24 hours in ambulances, data shows

Patients were forced to wait for 24 hours in ambulances and 600 crews waited more than 10 hours to hand over patients, latest data shows.

Tens of thousands of ambulance hours were lost in April as paramedics were forced to wait for more than 10 hours outside of A&Es, according to an analysis by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, seen by The Independent.

Four thousand ambulances in England were delayed by more than five hours and 599 delays by more than 10 hours.

The longest delays reported by ambulances reached almost 24 hours, in April - the longest on record.

South West Ambulance Service Trust appeared to have suffered the worst in terms of long delays, reporting a 23.3 hour delay last month and a total of 45,774 hours lost to handovers.

AACE’s analysis of data from ambulance trusts suggested there were 3,787 incidents of severe harm due to ambulance handover delays in April, and almost 10,000 incidents of moderate harm.

This is based on the proportion of patients waiting more than 60 minutes in the back of an ambulance. The data covers the 11 ambulance service trusts across England.

March hit an all-time high in terms of the number of ambulances hours lost outside of A&E with 44,000 hours lost due to handovers taking more than two hours.

There was a slight decrease in April to 40,000 according to a report on Monday, however, this still shows a huge year on year increase when compared to April 2021 when there were less than 1,000.

Long delays outside of hospitals are driving delayed ambulance response times within the community as emergency patients, such as those having a stroke, waited more than an hour and half on average in April.

On Friday The Independent revealed the huge pressures on ambulance call centres, as briefings showed delays in 999 calls being answered had soared to 38,000 in April- a 24-fold increase on April 2021.

NHS figures for April showed record delays in the number of patients waiting for more than 12 hours in A&E.

Delays in A&Es taking patients from ambulances have been driven by increased pressures on emergency departments which are struggling to admit patients to hospital beds amid increased delays in discharging hospital patients.

For 2022-23 new targets for hospitals mean they have to take 65 per cent of patients from ambulances within 15 minutes and 95 per cent within 30 minutes.

The 15 minutes target is significantly lower than the previous standard which mandated 100 per cent of handovers must happen within 15 minutes.

However, hospitals have been given a new aim of eliminating all handover delays exceeding 60 minutes. April’s data, from NHS England, showed there were 41,000 handover delays lasting 60 minutes or longer.

According to reports from The Health Service Journal, NHS England has published a contract worth £7.5 million a year to find organisations to assist ambulance trusts with the “surge” demand.