According to the Guardian, more than 1,000 patients per day in England are facing “potential harm” due to delays in handing over ambulances.
Last year, 414,137 patients are believed to have experienced some degree of harm because they spent so long in the back of an ambulance waiting to be admitted to hospital. Of those, 44,409 – more than 850 per week – faced “serious potential harm”, with delays resulting in permanent or long-term harm or death.
The Guardian investigation found that overall, ambulances will spend more than 1.5 million hours – the equivalent of 187 years – outside A&E waiting to offload patients by November 2024.
Experts said the figures were “shocking” and showed how the NHS was in a “more fragile” state than ever, amid a “perfect storm” of record demand for A&E, rising numbers of 999 calls and increasingly sick and aging people. among the population. ,
Analysis of NHS data by the Guardian and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) highlights the sheer scale of the challenge facing Keir Starmer as he prepares to set out how he plans to save the NHS .
Anna Parry, managing director of AACE, which represents the bosses of England’s 10 regional NHS ambulance services, said the data “speaks for itself”.
He added: “These figures underline what the ambulance sector has been saying for a long time – that thousands of patients are potentially being harmed every month as a direct result of delays in hospital handovers.”
Ambulance handover delays occur when ambulances arrive at A&E but are unable to hand over patients to staff because the units are busy. It also means paramedics are unable to get back on the road to care for other patients.
Delays mean patients are either forced to wait outside in the back of an ambulance or are taken to A&E, but hospital staff are not available to complete the handover from paramedics.
National guidance states that patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance should be handed over to the care of A&E staff within 15 minutes.
However, the Guardian’s investigation found that the target has been consistently missed. Crews often wait outside hospitals for several hours and sometimes entire 12-hour shifts, with ambulances queued up unable to respond to other emergency calls.
Nearly a third of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week – 32.1% – waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams.
The Guardian analysis is the first time a media organization has examined a full year’s worth of data on ambulance handover delays and the potential harms they cause.
Ambulance crews lost 1,641,522 hours waiting to hand over patients to A&E staff due to delays of more than 15 minutes in the 12 months to November 2024. The investigation found that this figure is 18.5% more than the same period last year.
AACE estimates that delays of more than an hour last year would have resulted in a loss of 414,137 patients – more people than the population of Coventry, England’s ninth-largest city. This figure is 18.7% more than last year.
Of the patients who were potentially harmed, 44,409 were estimated to be seriously harmed. This number is also 18.7% more than last year.
Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the findings of the Guardian investigation were “shocking” and showed a “lack of capability” in the NHS’s urgent and emergency services.
“People are waiting for ambulances, waiting in ambulances and waiting on ambulance trolleys in hospital corridors because emergency departments are so full – causing potential harm.
Urgent attention is needed to the “exit block” – an increase in the number of beds to be able to move people from A&E to wards, and appropriate social care options to ensure those deemed medically healthy People leaving can go home, can do so.
“Only then will we see meaningful change at the front doors of our hospitals.”
On Friday, NHS Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly declared a serious incident due to long ambulance queues and high A&E patient numbers outside the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, including many who were medically fit for discharge, but Waiting for the right care.
Rory Deighton, acute network director for the NHS confederation, said the Guardian’s revelations highlighted a “crisis” in emergency care.
“As these data show, unfortunately patients often have to wait too long for an ambulance, and when they do get to the hospital, as we have seen in recent days, many emergency departments have to use makeshift solutions.” Handover may also be delayed due to force majeure. Taking care of the corridor to meet the demand.”
Deighton said tackling the “shortfall in social care provision” would be “crucial” to reducing delays in ambulance handovers by speeding up the discharge of hospital patients and helping older people avoid admission in the first place.
“But the reality is that rising levels of ill health in the country, coupled with years of underinvestment in the NHS and social care, means that our local health and care services are more fragile than ever.”
Adam Brimelow, communications director for NHS Providers, said the figures were “very worrying”. The “perfect storm” of very high numbers of the most urgent category of 999 calls on top of record A&E attendances has led to “real capacity challenges”, he added.
“Recent months have seen some of the busiest months ever for ambulance callouts and extended teams face an uphill battle when demand goes through the roof and outstrips available resources “
Parry said a “high priority focus” on reducing handover delays was necessary to ensure ambulances were available to those most in need. He said the crisis is “not insurmountable”.
The Department of Health and Social Care said long delays in handing over ambulances were “completely unacceptable” and that its plans to “rebuild” the NHS would improve emergency care.
A spokesperson said: “This includes the investment and reforms we have announced in social care and the 1,000 extra GPs we are recruiting, who will reach patients earlier, help keep them well and on ambulance services. Will reduce the pressure.”
NHS England has been contacted for comment.