Hospital boss reassures patients as worst ambulance handover delays in Cambridgeshire revealed
The top 10 longest delays totalled more than 88 hours
A hospital boss in Cambridgeshire has said plans are in place to help cut down on waiting times for patients.
We can reveal for the six months to November this year, the top 10 longest delays for the East of England Ambulance Service crews to hand over patients outside the county's hospitals totalled more than 88 hours.
Seven of those delays were recorded at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.
"It is concerning when patients are waiting that long in an ambulance," Jon Scott, chief operating officer at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), said.
"What we're doing is putting in a winter plan to enable us to treat people faster, move people through the whole process faster and be able to offload the ambulances quicker."
Longest wait more than 10 hours
Data obtained by Greatest Hits Radio through a Freedom of Information request found out of the 10 delays, the longest wait between May 1 and October 31, 2024 was 10 hours, 18 minutes and 49 seconds.
Ambulance crews waited more than 10 hours twice in this six month period, while the shortest wait out of the 10 longest was eight hours, 12 minutes and 38 seconds outside Peterborough City Hospital.
National guidance states that patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance must be handed over to the care of A&E staff within 15 minutes.
A handover delay does not always mean a patient waits in an ambulance, as people may have been moved into the A&E department, but staff were not available to complete the handover from paramedics.
The CUH found at Addenbrooke's, October was the busiest on record with 13,184 people visiting its emergency department (ED), with the average ambulance handover time at 25 minutes compared to the national average of 40 minutes.
In the same month, 66.9% of patients in the ED were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, up from 60.3% from the previous year but below the national target of 78%.
"We do sometimes experience waits, and the winter plan we've got is designed to address those waits," Mr Scott said.
"Our average handover of ambulances is 25 minutes; that does mean some people wait longer than that, but this plan is about making sure we hit the needs of patients where they are and that would include getting people out of ambulances as quickly as we can."
What is the winter plan?
The CUH says preparations are in place to cope with an expected rise in demand, including high numbers arriving at the ED with winter-related respiratory conditions, illnesses, and injuries exacerbated by the cold weather.
Some of the measures include:
- Same Day Emergency Care: patients can be seen and treated quickly. They are cared for on the same day and go home if they are well enough, without needing to be admitted onto a ward.
- Acute Frailty Unit: patients are taken from the ED to a dedicated quiet area to be treated quickly and effectively by a specialist team of geriatricians and nurses. The aim is for these patients to be safely discharged on the same day, if possible, to avoid the recognised complications of a hospital admission.
- Virtual ward: the ward - which has increased to 75 beds and has treated more than 2,500 patients - allows patients to be monitored, overseen and treated by specialist clinicians from their own homes. The aim is to reduce to number of hospital bed days a patient needs and improve patient wellbeing.
- Surgical hub: allows planned orthopaedic and spine operations to take place, with more than 2,500 operations carried out since it opened in November last year.
- Discharge lounge: this supports the timely and safe discharge of patients ready to go home and frees up beds for those in need. The hospital aims to ensure more fit and well patients are discharged before 12pm to create what it says "much-needed capacity" earlier in the day for new patients.
According to NHS England's latest monthly performance data, 35.8% of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England two weeks ago waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams.
In the previous week, that figure was at 36.1% but higher than the equivalent week in 2023, when the proportion stood at 33.8%.
A fortnight ago, 16.3% of ambulance handovers were delayed by more than an hour, a slight decrease on the week before and higher than at this point in 2023.
Mr Scott said ambulance handover times are improving at CUH but more work must be done.
"We've improved our four-hour target and offload times since last year, we continue to aim to reduce those, we know the pressures are difficult to deal with but the winter plan is designed to alleviate those pressures," he added.
"The message for patients is we are there for you, but do use NHS 111, the pharmacy and the GP to see whether or not they can see you and provide you with the treatment you need."