999 Staff at "Breaking Point" Over A&E Handovers

A shock report claims that bottlenecks of trolleys at accident and emergency departments across the North West are keeping ambulances off the roads and putting lives at risk.

Figures released by the GMB, which represents many ambulance staff, show that paramedic crews are waiting up to six hours to hand over patients to hospital staff – the equivalent of losing almost 10 ambulances a day.

The report also reveals that on one day alone, more than 300 crews in the North West waited for more than an hour to book patients into A&E. The government target for such handovers is 15 minutes.

Responding to the report, the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) cited a 33 per cent rise in emergency callouts being a contributing factor to the delays, stating:

"This undoubtedly puts pressure on the hospitals and unfortunately means that we are waiting longer to hand over our patients into their care and get back out on the road to respond to other patients.

"This issue is one which we have discussed at length with our commissioners and are working alongside our NHS colleagues to address."

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