Leak reveals hour-long ambulance delays have quadrupled in 12 months

Ambulance handover delays lasting more than 60 minutes have increased four-fold compared to this time last year, according to internal NHS data.

NHS data seen by HSJ suggests there were around 28,900 ambulance handovers lasting longer than an hour during a four-week period in October. This was almost four times higher than the 7,772 hour-long handovers recorded in October 2020.

It is also significantly higher than the 17,137 seen in January 2021, which was the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week NHS England wrote to trusts and integrated care systems telling them to take urgent action to “immediately stop all delays” to ambulance handovers, and that “corridor care” is “unacceptable as a solution”.

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Source: HSJ, 3 November 2021