Ambulance handover times still on the rise
MORE than a quarter of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to Accident and Emergency departments – the highest level since the start of winter, latest figures show.
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP] was at the top of the list for handovers delayed by over an hour.
Some 21,051 delays of half an hour or longer were recorded across all hospital trusts in the seven days to March 27. This represented 26% of the 79,588 arrivals by ambulance.
The proportion of handovers delayed by at least 30 minutes has been rising in recent weeks, having stood at 20% in mid-February. Figures for ambulance delays are published by NHS England and the current data runs from the start of December.
There were 9,225 arrivals during the latest recorded week – 12% of the total – who were kept waiting more than an hour to be handed to A&E teams. This was up from 10% in the previous week.
Analysis of the data by the Press Association shows that Northern Lincolnshire & Goole NHS Foundation Trust reported the highest proportion of handovers delayed by at least 30 minutes during the week (74%), followed by Gloucestershire Hospitals (71%), UHP (71%) and University Hospitals Bristol & Weston (68%).
UHP topped the list for handovers delayed by more than an hour (58%), followed by Northern Lincolnshire & Goole (57%), Gloucestershire Hospitals (54%) and University Hospitals Bristol & Weston (52%).
A handover delay does not always mean a patient has waited in the ambulance. They may have been moved into an A&E department but staff were not available to complete the handover, but the figures are another sign of the pressures hospitals are facing amid the latest rise in coronavirus infections.
UHP is working closely with South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) to reduce wait times. A spokesperson for UHP added that its A&E department has been experiencing ‘exceptional challenges’, due to staff shortages.
The spokesperson said: “University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is a major trauma centre and as such we provide specialist services for the South West peninsula, receiving some of the most acutely unwell patients by road and air ambulance. We recognise that patients are waiting in ambulances when they should be seen more quickly in the Emergency Department.
“Our Emergency Department is experiencing exceptional challenges with staff absences and high numbers of Covid-19. However, our staff continue to work as hard as they can to reduce waits and ensure patients are prioritised in order of clinical need. We are also working really closely with SWASFT and our local system partners to support each other in reducing handover wait times.”
Separate data published last Thursday showed staff absences at NHS hospitals in England due to Covid-19 have jumped to their highest level since the end of January. Absences averaged 27,571 a day last week – the equivalent of 3% of the workforce – up from 23,127 the previous week, though still some way below the 45,736 (5% of the workforce) reached in early January.
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said: “NHS staff remain under pressure as they deal with high numbers of patients in hospital alongside a spike in staff absences due to Covid-19 – with numbers of staff off sick due to Covid almost doubling in the last three weeks.”