Hospital handover delays soar across East Midlands

Leicester’s emergency rooms among affected

THOUSANDS more patients in the region are waiting more than a hour to be admitted to hospital as ambulance handover times triple in two years.

According to new figures East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) has the worst performance of any trust of its kind in England.

A Freedom of Information request by the Labour Party revealed the number of patients who waited more than an hour to be admitted to hospitals in the East Midlands including Leicester Royal Infirmary rose from 6,000 in 2013-14 to almost 19,000 in 2015-16.

However, the delays are not down to inefficiency from EMAS. Hospital handovers refer to the time it takes for the patient to be accepted clinically from ambulance crews.

This involves passing on the patient’s medical information and discussing any treatment given.

Afterwards the receiving hospital has full responsibility for the casualty but if hospitals are busy with no available beds then paramedics have no choice but to wait with them.

This then impacts on the ambulance trust’s service because they lose hours queuing when they should be answering emergency calls.

Dave Whiting, chief operating officer at EMAS said: “We work closely with our commissioners and A&E departments to reduce hospital handover times but ultimately the responsibility lies with the hospital trusts.

“Each hospital manages handover delays to ensure patients are safe when waiting to be handed over to the care of the A&E department. When our crews are queuing with patients it does mean they aren’t able to respond to new 999 calls from patients who are waiting in the community.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “We expect patient handovers from ambulance to A&E to happen within 30 minutes.

“Accident and emergency departments are busy but with nine out of 10 people seen within four hours, hospitals are performing well.”

Nationally the figures showed hour-plus waits rose from 28,000 in 201314 to 76,000 in 2015-16.