Patients waiting at least an hour in ambulances double in two years

Labour says figures showing delays in transferring patients into A&Es are a sign the NHS has been ‘pushed to brink’

The number of patients waiting an hour or more to be transferred from an ambulance into an NHS A&E ward has doubled in England over the past two years.

There were 111,524 people who waited at least 60 minutes in an ambulance in 2016-17, up from 51,115 in 2014-15, prompting fears about patient safety. The increase was even more pronounced in some parts of the country, with figures from South East Coast ambulance service (Secamb) showing the number more than quadrupled over the same period, while in London it almost trebled.

Continue reading... November 03, 2017 at 05:31AM