James Paget Hospital's ambulance unit aims to reduce wait times

Patients at the ambulance handover unit would be seen by a senior clinician

An emergency hospital has introduced an ambulance handover unit and a GP service in a bid to cut waiting times.

The James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk, created the handover unit to enable ambulance staff to transfer patients more quickly and get to other emergencies.

The hospital's chief executive Joanne Segasby said patients would be seen by a senior clinician at the unit.

She said the NHS hospital was "in a better place" than in previous winters.

The patients would be assessed at the unit at the hospital, which serves the Great Yarmouth area in Norfolk and Lowestoft area in Suffolk

Aiden Rice, clinical operations manager for North Norfolk Primary Care, said a GP service had been introduced at the hospital as "lots of patients" were "turning up at emergency departments" that did not necessarily need to be.

Their non-hospital GP service was seeing 40-60 patients per day, which was about a third of those turning up at the hospital, Mr Rice said.

"We're not here to decide whether they're right or wrong," he said.

"We're here to identify patients and take the pressure off the emergency department."

Joanne Segasby said the hospital was doing all it could to support the ambulance service

Ms Segasby said the handover unit and the GP service had been introduced to ease pressures and get patients seen more quickly, which would help in "really busy periods".

"Ideally we would have patients come into the emergency department and they would be seen and assessed and have appropriate treatment," she said.

"If they needed a hospital stay, they would then be moved into our inpatient wards.

"But on occasions it is not possible for us to do that, so that means ambulances are waiting outside with patients in them for long periods of time.

"Those ambulances can't then go out to see other patients in the community."

She added that patients in the handover unit would be "looked after by staff who are fully trained and fully competent".

"We are doing everything we can to support the ambulance service," she said.