West Midlands: Deaths spike during ambulance waits

West Midlands Ambulance Service has been on it highest alert since March

There has been a rise in the number of people dying while waiting for an ambulance in the West Midlands, data reveals.

Figures for the period March to May this year showed 38 died compared to just two in the same months in 2021.

The same period in pre-pandemic 2019 yielded no deaths.

The waits were due to paramedics being delayed outside A&E departments and unable to hand over patients, West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) said.

Elsewhere in the data, obtained following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by BBC WM, the monthly number of lost hours attributed to A&E handover delays was the highest ever in June, dwarfing 2019's annual total.

July is predicted to be worse.

In May, Mark Doherty, director of nursing for WMAS, predicted the service would collapse by 17 August if hours lost by crews delayed outside hospitals kept increasing.

The numbers come as services across the country face intense pressures.

Wayne Francis said he had previously learned CPR

BBC Newsnight spent 12 hours on Monday at six hospitals, with the longest delays being in the handover of patients from paramedics to A&E staff.

At Worcestershire Royal, Newsnight found 15 ambulances were queuing up to four hours before a researcher was ordered off the premises.

National guidelines state handovers should be completed in 15 minutes, with no patient waiting more than 30.

As part of BBC WM's FOI request, WMAS provided figures on hours lost by crews delayed outside A&E. They revealed:

• In 2019, 6,835 hours were lost in total over the year

• In July 2021 alone, the tally was 17,186

• In April 2022, 35,957 hours were lost

• June 2022 was the worst month on record with 38,373 lost hours

• July is predicted to have a total of 46,641

On Wednesday, all ambulance services in England were put on the highest alert level because of extremely high demand, exacerbated by the country's heatwave.

WMAS said it had been on the same alert since March.

West Midlands Ambulance Service director Mark Docherty said in May: "August 17 is the day I think it will all fail"

Ambulance bosses in the region have apologised to several families after waits in reaching patients, including a 59-year-old man in Stoke-on-Trent who died after collapsing in June.

In May, Wayne Francis in Shropshire said he was left doing CPR for 35 minutes while waiting for an ambulance for his mother who died.

The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) managing director Martin Flaherty said the current pressures on ambulance services were unprecedented and had been building for some time.

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In response, the Department of Health and Social Care said it recognised pressures faced by frontline NHS staff.

"The NHS has allocated £150m of additional funding to address pressures on ambulance services, with the number of ambulance and support staff increasing by almost 40% since February 2010," a spokesperson said.