Ambulances kept waiting at hospitals

Feb 18 2008

MORE than 6,000 cases of ambulance crews spending up to an hour at North West hospitals waiting to hand over patients to casualty departments were recorded last year.

The figures, released over the weekend, come just days after the Liverpool Daily Post revealed average turnaround times at most of Merseyside’s hospitals were more than 20 minutes.

According to North West Ambulance Service figures, 6,643 cases were reported by paramedics where turnaround times were longer than an hour.

Paramedics have told the Daily Post that, in some cases, they are being told there is no room for patients in casualty departments because hospital staff fear they will miss waiting-time targets if they admit more cases.

That leaves paramedics with no choice but to stay with patients until a space becomes free.

The knock-on impact for the ambulance service is that it has fewer vehicles on the road to respond to emergencies.

As the Daily Post revealed last week, paramedics on rapid response vehicles are sometimes spending up to 40 minutes with seriously-ill patients before an ambulance arrives to take the patient to hospital.

A spokesman for Unison, which represents many paramedics, said: “Ambulances should not be used as mobile waiting rooms.

“They should be freed up to do their job.

“The problem is that A&E units aren’t admitting patients who are in the back of ambulances if at all possible if it's going to compromise the four-hour target that they are set by the Government to treat all patients in A&E.

“They are deliberately keeping patients outside waiting in ambulances.” Dr Jonathan Fielden, the chairman of the consultants' committee at the British Medical Association, said: “The vast majority of patients coming into hospital by ambulance are in critical need of urgent care in hospital and therefore delay in getting to that critical care can worsen their outcome.

“That could include patients with heart attacks, certain types of strokes, breathing difficulties or trauma.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “These figures measure the time taken to turn around an ambulance for its next emergency, including cleaning and restocking the ambulance ready to go back out on the road.

“They do not reflect time spent by patients in the ambulance before being admitted to accident and emergency.

“These figures must be seen in the wider context of the 4.3m patient journeys undertaken by emergency vehicles in 2006-7.

“But it is clearly important that patients are handed over to A&E as soon as possible after the ambulance arrives.”

But paramedics have said a regular turnaround should only take around 10 minutes.

davidhiggerson