Ambulance trust reveals patient’s death amid handover delays row

An ambulance trust has highlighted the death of a woman which it says was due to “being delayed on the back of an ambulance”, just two days after it warned that lives were ‘at risk’ from long handovers.

West Midlands Ambulance Service University Foundation Trust’s board papers this month reveal the woman in her 90s — who has not been named — was taken to hospital because a severe nose bleed would not stop.

Its clinical quality board paper says the “patient story” showed ”how a patient being delayed on the back of an ambulance resulted in significant deterioration and ultimately the death of a patient”.

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Source: HSJ, 28 May 2021