3-hour 999 wait at A&E

AN ANGRY daughter whose dad waited three hours in an ambulance outside A&E wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May.

Annie White, 24, from Hinckley, penned the letter on Facebook along with a video showing ambulances queuing up outside Leicester Royal Infirmary last Tuesday (January 2).

She blasted funding levels which she said was leaving the health service ‘overstretched’ and ‘unsupported’.

Her letter came as new figures showed one in seven ambulances arriving at Leicestershire A&E departments during Christmas week queued for over an hour before being able to off-load patients.

The latest figures highlighting the scale of the winter crisis facing the NHS show that between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, 178 ambulances were delayed by more than an hour when transferring patients to A&Es run by University Hospitals of Leicester.

NHS guidelines are that transfers should take less than 15 minutes, but the figures from NHS England show that 360 transfers in the area took 30 minutes or more during the festive period.

This was the equivalent of one in every three ambulances arriving being delayed for over half-an-hour, and compares to 328 hand overs taking more than 30 minutes during the same dates in 2016.

In her letter, Annie wrote: “I have been at the Leicester Royal Infirmary Accident & Emergency for five hours now, three of which were spent waiting inside the back ambulance after my dad took a nasty fall this evening at home.

“Here is a video of the ambulance bays outside A&E where you will see around 15 Ambulances having to re-park their vans over the designated parking bay lines to line up closer to each other to make room for the queue of more ambulances with patients waiting to be seen to.

“Meanwhile there is an A-Board erected at the front Reception of A&E declaring “the current 6-7 hour” assessment waiting time with around 175 people filling the seats.

“There is also no denying that our Hospitals are understaffed and overstretched.

“This night has been an upsetting eye opener confirming that our NHS is under-funded and unsupported.

“Our NHS works tirelessly 24/7 and 365 to save and look after us, it is a national treasure which we need to keep as nationalised as we can, at all costs.

“On a final note, thank you to our unsung heroes, our NHS workers. You work tirelessly, and consistently to keep us ticking over.

“You deserve the utmost respect and admiration for what you do.”

Speaking afterwards to our sister paper The Leicester Mercury, Annie added her dad was well looked after and discharged from hospital the following day.

She said: “Dad was great. He was in really good spirits.

“But he was getting very tired with waiting and a lack of sleep.

“I know it was not a normal night but they were understaffed.

“The open letter to the Prime Minister is to try to force the government to listen to the NHS.”

Across England during Christmas week, 4,734 ambulances were delayed by more than an hour when transferring patients to A&E.

As well as this 16,893 transfers took 30 minutes or more during the festive period.

This was 17.3 per cent of all transfers during the seven days, or one in six.

Ambulance transfers were more likely to take more than 30 minutes than during the same period in 2016, when 14,799 transfers took more than 30 minutes, a rise of 14.1 per cent.

In 2016, 16.6 per cent of ambulance hand overs took more than 30 minutes.

There were no A&E closures during either period.

Dr Chris Moulton, vicepresident of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “These figures reflect what our members all over the UK have been saying; A&E departments are struggling - even in a week that traditionally experiences a lull from the pressures of winter.

“If this is better prepared, then it’s both a startling admission of the abject failure of planning in previous years and a poor reflection on the current plans.

“Planning for this year was too little too late and it is clearly not working.

“However, given the continued capacity and resource issues, this can be of little surprise to anyone.”

He added that cancelling 55,000 operations will cause further problems for those whose treatment is postponed, especially as many of these patients will subsequently present to A&E departments with ongoing symptoms.

Average bed occupancy levels in adult and paediatric critical care wards is also higher in 2017 than in 2016

The average occupancy for adult wards during the festive period rose from 81.2 per cent to 81.9 per cent, while it rose from 74.6 per cent to 77.8 per cent on paediatric wards.

However, average occupancy levels for neonatal intensive care have fallen, although they were still above recommended levels - down from 73.7 per cent on average in the festive week in 2016 to 71.0 per cent in 2017.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists’ recommended critical care bed occupancy level is 70 per cent or lower, saying persistent bed occupancy above 70 per cent suggests that a unit is too small, and occupancy of 80 per cent or more is likely to result in nonclinical transfers that carry associated risks.

Responding to the figures, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA council chair, said: “These figures paint a clear picture of just how congested and overstretched the system is, and is further evidence that pressure on the NHS continues to intensify.

“The winter months have always have been more of a challenge for the NHS, but in recent years the pressure on staff and services has reached new levels with patients unfair- ly bearing the brunt of long waiting times and cancellations.”

He said more long-term planning was urgently needed to ensure the NHS can meet rising demand on services and has the capacity to deal with the inevitable spike in demand each winter, with increased funding a critical part of this.