Ambulance crews in England having to look after more people for longer this winter

Record numbers of patients are being forced to stay with ambulance crews for an hour or more this winter because overwhelmed A&E units are too busy to admit them.

A total of 81,012 patients in England have had to remain with ambulance personnel for at least half an hour because of delays getting into an emergency department in the five weeks since winter began. That is the highest number since records began in 2017-18.

Of those, 21,663 were forced to wait for at least an hour – again the most ever recorded by the NHS.

Both numbers are sharply up on last year, when there were 51,711 waits of at least half an hour and 9,990 of an hour or more in the same period.

Ambulance delays are happening more often because A&Es have come under the most intense pressure ever seen in recent weeks, partly because of a rise in the number of people getting flu.

There is concern that ambulance response times to 999 calls are slower than they need to be because so many crews are tied up at hospitals looking after patients in vehicles or corridors.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS trust has had the largest number of patients delayed (2,595) for at least 30 minutes with ambulance crews so far this winter. Barking, Havering and Redbridge trust in London has had 2,522, and 2,328 have occurred at University Hospitals Leicester trust.

The rise in ambulance waits emerged on Thursday as new NHS figures showed that hospital-based A&E units are treating the smallest ever percentage of patients within four hours – just 68.6%. It is meant to be 95%.

That 68.6% is the lowest proportion seen since the four-hour target was introduced in 2004 and the first time performance has fallen below 70%.

“Winter has now hit the NHS: today’s stats show an alarming decline in A&E performance with performance against the four-hour target in major A&E units reaching a new low point,” said Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund health thinktank.

It was “shocking” that the number of people forced to spend 12 hours on a trolley as they wait to get a bed in hospital hit 2,300 in December – double the number seen the previous month and eight times higher than in December last year, Murray added.

The NHS’s increasing inability to treat patients as quickly as they should reflects the fact that it is experiencing the most intense demand for care it has ever faced. The largest number of ambulance responses to 999 calls and emergency admissions to hospital since records began were recorded in December.

NHS England said the intense pressure on services showed that it needed more staff and beds. It has around 100,000 vacancies and patients are often delayed being admitted to a ward because beds are so scarce.

Prof Stephen Powis, its medical director, made clear the NHS leadership’s desire that Boris Johnson deliver on his promises to give the service more staff and money to build 40 new hospitals and overhaul 20 others by 2030.

“The continued increase in people’s need for care underlines the need for more beds and staff across hospital and community services, which is why the government’s commitment to increase the number of nurses by 50,000 and invest in new and expanded facilities will be crucial over the coming years,” said Powis.