Nine trusts account for third of ambulance ‘hours lost’

Nine acute trusts accounted for a third of all ‘hours lost’ to ambulance handover delays last week, according to new data.

The first NHS England winter sitrep data showed wide variation between providers on ambulance handover performance, with a small number of providers accounting for a huge proportion of delays.

There were nine trusts where, for each ambulance arrival in the week to 20 November, an average (mean) of more than an hour was lost to handover delays. The providers accounted for around 7,000 hours lost, 33% the national total, despite only accounting for 7% of ambulance arrivals. 

At University Hospitals Plymouth an average of 2.3 hours were lost.

The other trusts were; Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals; East and North Hertfordshire; The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn; Great Western Hospitals; University Hospitals of Leicester; Torbay and South Devon; University Hospitals of North Midlands; and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals.

Many of the worst performing hospitals were in the South West and East of England regions, which have previously been identified as areas which struggle on handover delays.

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Source: HSJ, 24 November 2022