NHS pressures: Half of Staffordshire's ambulances waiting outside hospital

Long queues could be seen outside the Royal Stoke University Hospital on Tuesday

Nearly half of Staffordshire's fleet of ambulances queued outside a hospital as pressures on the NHS continued.

Delays in patient handovers saw 25 out of the county's 57 ambulances waiting outside Royal Stoke University Hospital on Tuesday.

The trust apologised for the lengthy waits and said a high number of patients had required emergency care since the weekend.

On Wednesday, the number of ambulances outside had dropped to 12.

West Midlands Ambulance Service said the delays were having a knock-on effect on reaching new patients.

"The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly," it said.

"Sadly, the pressures we are seeing lead to long hospital handover delays with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital rather than responding to the next call."

Covid-19 pressures

Paul Bytheway, chief operating officer at the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, said Covid-19 remained an issue and was impacting on levels of staff sickness.

"All ambulances are able to access our site and we are working with our ambulance colleagues to off load patients as quickly as possible," he added.

"We are also working with our NHS and local authority partners to ensure that when a patient no longer needs hospital care they can be discharged quickly."