A&E waits are rising because the NHS braces for its hardest ever winter.
Ambulance leaders warned the well being service’s seasonal annual disaster had already begun. Looming strikes by junior medical doctors subsequent month are set to worsen the scenario. Some 69.7% of sufferers in England have been seen inside 4 hours in A&Es final month, down from 70.2% in October.
About one in three sufferers arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England final week waited greater than half-hour to be handed over to casualty models, figures present. NHS England information reveals 28,498 delays of half an hour or longer have been recorded throughout all hospital trusts within the week to December 10. That was 34% of the 84,268 arrivals by ambulance the place the handover time was recognized – and up from 25% for the week ending November 26.
The College of Paramedics and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) mentioned delays in hospitals have been forcing crews to attend outdoors packed A&E departments models and overcrowded wards, unable to take sufferers off autos. Separate figures compiled by the AACE for October confirmed affected person handover delays at emergency models elevated sharply. Delays of quarter-hour or longer reached 237,000 – the second highest quantity to this point – whereas delays of an hour or extra hit 44,000 – doubling in underneath six months.
The organisation mentioned: “The time and resources lost to these delays by NHS ambulance services reached 149,000 hours – the equivalent of 119,000 ambulance job cycles. As a result of these handover delays at emergency departments, 37,000 patients were exposed to additional potential harm.”
AACE managing director Anna Parry mentioned: “These figures are particularly concerning as we head further into winter, underlining the need for a maintained focus on improvements that will reduce and eradicate handover delays, prevent more patients from coming to harm, and mitigate the severe impact on all categories of NHS ambulance performance.”
The College of Paramedics was “very concerned that this winter will be another extremely difficult one for patients and our members”. A spokeswoman added: “Increase in hospital handover delays risks patient harm, leading to an inability to reach patients in the community. Delays in patients moving on from emergency departments causes a delay to patients being handed over from ambulances, which causes delays in 999 responses.” She mentioned “continued support and investment in ambulance services and the paramedic profession” was “desperately required”.
The College known as on the Government “to urgently address issues within emergency departments where every day the valuable and precious capacity of paramedics is lost when waiting to handover patients”. The Health Foundation’s assistant coverage director Tim Gardner warned that “heading into winter, the NHS is not in a substantially better position than this time last year, which was one of the worst ever”. He added: “How well the health service copes over the coming months largely depends on the weather and seasonal viruses, including influenza. While winter pressures may be inevitable, the annual NHS crisis is not.”
NHS England medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis admitted: “Every winter is difficult, of course, and last winter was particularly difficult, so we’ve been planning hard for this winter since last winter, and putting in place additional measures to make the NHS even more resilient.” He added: “We know that infectious diseases are increasing. We are beginning to see Covid increasing again and we’re just about I think to come into the winter’s usual flu wave.”
Asked how bad ambulance delays will get, Rishi Sunak mentioned: “We know that winter is at all times a difficult time for the NHS and that is why this 12 months as Prime Minister I made positive that we began planning with the NHS for winter sooner than we have ever carried out it.”
He mentioned the Government was injecting “£1billion of extra funding” for “expanding A&E departments, putting more ambulances on the road and, crucially, discharge and the social care sector so that people can go back to their homes, back to their local communities once they’ve finished being in hospital and we can free up that capacity to treat urgent patients”.
He added: “Obviously we’ll keep a close eye on it and work closely with the NHS to deliver everyone the care that they need.”
The Mirror revealed last month how more than half of England’s A&E departments fail to meet minimum standards. The Care Quality Commission watchdog found 106 out of 197 units were either “inadequate” or “requiring improvement”.