Alert over steep rise in handover delays

An ambulance trust is warning that delays handing patients over to hospitals have “significantly deteriorated” in the past two months, with one waiting nearly 20 hours.

West Midlands Ambulance Service University Foundation Trust said October was set to be its second worst month on record for hours lost to delays outside hospitals.

It said the delays were set to amount to 42,000 crew hours in October for the region, the equivalent of 130 vehicles each day. In August the figure fell to 20,000 hours but they have since surged towards a level seen in the worst months of the past two winters.

This has pushed average response times for category 2 calls – which include suspected heart attacks and strokes – to well over the 30-minute “interim” target, the trust said.

The trust said it had been trying to use an “immediate offload” protocol to speed up handovers – which is backed by NHS England where there are category 1 or 2 calls waiting – but only 43% of its 1,259 requests were accepted by the acute trust involved, in the first three weeks of October.

Every day at least one person had to wait more than eight hours to be offloaded; and one wait in Worcester reached 19h35m. 

Staff are raising concerns about getting food and drink for patients and themselves; working shifts of up to 17 hours; lost training opportunities; as well as difficulties providing care in the vehicles.

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Source: HSJ, 1 November 2024