Ambulances forced to wait more than 30 minutes at A&E

[dutchman]

Ambulances had to wait more than 30 minutes to hand over patients to A&E more than 200 times at Coventry's hospital last week.



University Hospitals Coventry And Warwickshire NHS Trust had 207 delayed handovers in the week to January 4, according to the latest figures from NHS England.

Across England, more than 200 patients were stuck in A&E for more than 12 hours waiting to be admitted last week, as more than 10,000 ambulances were left waiting at A&E doors.

The latest figures from NHS England show 241 patients waited in A&E for more than 12 hours between a decision to admit being made and them actually being admitted to hospital in the week to January 4, possibly as a result of a lack of available beds. There were 11,714 people who had to wait between four and 12 hours in A&E between the decision to admit and actually being admitted.

Since April 2014, this has happened on 499 occasions, meaning nearly half of all incidences happened last week. Of those waiting longer than 12 hours, 122 were at University Hospitals Of North Midlands NHS Trust.

New figures also show that in the week to January 4, ambulances were delayed by more than 30 minutes when making handovers of patients at A&Es 10,977 times, beating the previous high of 10,226 in the week ending December 21.

Over the same period the number of elective operations cancelled soared from 493 in the week to December 28 to 1,328 in the week to January 4, although 1,950 were cancelled in the week to December 21.