Delays waste 130k hours of ambulance time in a fortnight

Fifteen years’ worth of ambulance time was wasted on delays in transferring patients to hospital in the first two weeks of this winter.

Wait times are up by a third in the past fortnight compared with last year amid concerns that the “worrying trend” will compound already mounting pressures facing the NHS.

Medics say they are facing a “quad-demic” — with flu cases in hospital four times higher than last year and high levels of Covid, norovirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

However, ambulance crews are experiencing longer wait times, meaning they cannot be redeployed to help others in need.

There have been 130,990 hours of delays in the first two weeks of winter as ambulances wait to transfer a patient to hospital — equivalent to 15 years, figures show.

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Source: The Times, 16 December 2024