The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) statistics show that during July 2022 almost 40,000 patients’ lives were put at risk due to ambulance delays.
The data for July shows that throughout the process of responding to emergencies, there have been delays at each stage, such as:
- The time taken to answer 999 calls, which averaged 64 seconds – the slowest response time since records began.
- Ambulance crews taking longer to respond to “category two” 999 calls, taking an average of 59 minutes and 7 seconds to respond. “Category two” is the second most serious category and includes people suffering from sepsis, major burns, and epileptic fits.
- Category one emergencies, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, or severe allergic reactions, response time is averaging nine minutes and 36 seconds – again the joint longest delay currently on record.
- Total hours lost outside of hospitals reached 152,000 in July because of delays in the 15-minute handover from the ambulance to the hospital, and handovers taking more than an hour in 46,089 cases.
The blame for this is being put on hospitals for not discharging patients quickly enough due to the lack of social care available for vulnerable patients. Therefore, this means there aren’t as many beds, which is leaving patients waiting in A&E longer than they should be.
In a recently reported case, an ambulance crew was forced to sit outside the hospital to hand over a patient for 26 hours, in some cases, they had to wait 48 hours for a bed.
President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Katherine Henderson, said:
“The situation represented a major crisis.”
Although NHS England is looking into critical measures that can be put in place for the winter months coming, there are many concerns that there will not be enough to stop the NHS from reaching breaking point within the next few months.
Comment
The statistics are a cause for concern, especially with the resources available already being pushed to the absolute limit. The fear grows that with the seasons changing and winter soon approaching, the demand for ambulances could become even more delayed and the demand for NHS services will further cause concern with the cold weather, flu season, and the rise in Covid-19 cases.
Whilst the pandemic has obviously contributed massively to the current crisis, there have been reports of NHS leaders warning of further delays in handovers of patients as far back as 2015.
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Helen Wilkinson is a Paralegal in our expert Medical Negligence team, which has been ranked in tier one by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500.
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