Ambulance handover delays 'worst in England'

West Midlands Ambulance Service crews lost 41,000 hours waiting outside hospitals

A region's ambulance crews lost 41,000 hours waiting outside hospitals in what has been described as the worst handover delays in England "by some margin".

West Midlands Ambulance Service said the time crews had lost in October handing over patients to hospitals was the equivalent to that of five other ambulance services combined.

The organisation's strategy and engagement director Vivek Khashu said the service had seen a "steep" increase in delays in recent months.

The 41,000 hours lost in October was up from 31,000 in September and 20,000 in August, he told Staffordshire County Council's health and care overview and scrutiny committee.

During Monday's meeting, he said these were the "worst handover delays in the country by some margin", equal to those of the North East, South Central, South East Coast, North West and London ambulance services added together.

Mr Khashu said: "There are 10 ambulance services and what's going on in the West Midlands equals five others added together."

He added: "It doesn't have to be this bad because it's not this bad everywhere else. Everywhere else has the same issues of frailty, resource constraints and everything else - the West Midlands is not different to other parts of the country."

'Difficult period'

Of the 41,000 hours lost, 8,500 of those were in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent - primarily at Royal Stoke University Hospital - the committee was told.

While handover delays were increasing, Mr Khashu said ambulance response times to category two callouts, which include strokes and heart attacks, had fallen to an average of 23 minutes this year – ahead of the service's target of 28 minutes.

But he warned that this was "beginning to erode" as the winter pressures started to affect the NHS and handover times increased.

"It's quite a difficult period – not just in terms of performance but what that means to patients and to our staff," he said.

"While we may still be getting to patients in a reasonable timeframe most of the time, that doesn't help the patient stuck in an ambulance for five, 10 or 15 hours outside a hospital."

To tackle the issue, Mr Khashu said the service had put in a "huge amount" of additional frontline resources to offset the delays at a cost of about £30m.

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