This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
NHS chief warns of ambulances stuck at A&E
Wayne Bartlett-Syree has warned that patients are at risk of harm because too many ambulances are stuck at A&E units and cannot respond quickly enough to 999 calls.
In a blogpost written for NHS Providers, the director of strategy and sustainability at the East of England Ambulance Service said that the number of delays ambulance crews have faced this winter was to blame for the increasing number of seriously ill patients who are having to wait for several hours for paramedics to arrive.
Latest NHS figures indicate that 149,214 patients had to be looked after by ambulance personnel for at least half an hour either in the back of an ambulance or a hospital corridor so far this winter as a result of poor waiting times and blocked ambulances.
Bartlett-Syree said: “It is now commonplace over the winter period for A&E corridors to become full of patients and ambulances to queue outside emergency departments. It means that patients in the community could be having heart attacks and strokes when there are no ambulances available to provide an emergency response. The risk of harm is now transferring from those in [hospital] corridors to patients in the community needing an ambulance.”
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