Data obtained by the Mirror shows a staggering rise in the number of patients waiting longer than half an hour to be ‘handed over’ to A&E staff. National guidelines say 999 callers who arrive at hospital should be handed from ambulance crews to A&E staff within 15 minutes. Yet our figures suggest 700,000 ambulance patients in England and Wales waited more than 30 minutes to be seen by A&E staff last year. We asked England and Wales’ 11 ambulance trusts for the number of A&E handovers that took more than half an hour since 2014. “A&E have their own issues to deal with.”A former paramedic said delays caused a vicious circle, with fewer ambulances to respond to calls while paramedics wait in A&E with patients.

Source: Daily Mirror December 22, 2020 22:31 UTC