Patient waited all day in ambulance outside A&E
Handover delays condemned after terrible ordeal at hospital
AHEALTH regulator has condemned ambulance handover delays at hospitals after witnessing one patient waiting for almost an entire day in the back of an ambulance.
The crew had to be changed in the middle of the 20 hour-wait at the doors of an A&E in the West Midlands.
Inspectors gave a glowing report of the care provided by West Midlands Ambulance Service, but were highly critical hospital handover delays.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said delays in handing patients over at hospitals meant ambulances and crews could not be made available to attend other calls. The regulator warned that long delays in ambulances also pose an “increased risk” for patients.
“During our visit the longest a patient had been waiting to be admitted to an NHS hospital, was approaching 20 hours,” inspectors wrote.
“The crew had been changed over to allow them to finish their shift. We were told this is a regular occurrence, especially at the particular hospital.”
The CQC said the service was not meeting response times as a result of handover delays.
In April 2019, some 6,000 hours of West Midlands Ambulance Service crew time was “lost” due to handover delays at local hospitals. In August 2022, this figure reached 43,758 hours.
The new CQC report, written after an inspection in November, added: “Due to extreme delays at hospitals, the service was not meeting any NHS constitutional ambulance response times, which was a similar picture across the ambulance services nationally.”
It adds: “We were told patients were sometimes deteriorating before an ambulance arrived. Longer waiting times for an ambulance often meant lower priority calls became more urgent as time passed and led to calls being made a higher priority.”
Some patients told inspectors they had faced a 12-hour wait even before
an ambulance arrived. Sonia Brooks, CQC’s deputy director of operations in the Midlands, said: “Although ambulance staff were working hard to meet national targets, these handover delays were a reflection of what’s happening across the healthcare system nationally during these times of sustained pressure. “However, people praised ambulance crews for their care and
compassion, particularly during the lengthy waits at hospital.”
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: “We are pleased the CQC recognised the enormous lengths that our staff have gone to, to look after patients while they deal with excessive hospital handover delays. “Sadly, as the report points out, we have seen some patients wait a very long time
for ambulances to arrive as a result of hospital delays, with increased risk to patients both waiting for an ambulance and those left on ambulance stretchers for very long periods.
“There has been a significant improvement since the turn of the year with delays reduced at hospitals across the region, which has allowed ambulances to get to patients more quickly than we have seen for many months.
“We will continue to work with the hospitals to find new ways of reducing the time that patients are left on ambulances so that our crews can respond more quickly to patients in the community and save more lives.”
A patient had been waiting to be admitted to an NHS hospital, was approaching 20 hours... The crew had been changed over CQC