East Midlands Ambulance Service facing 'horrendous' delays for Rutland residents
The service say it's expecting an "extremely challenging winter"
Last updated 5th Oct 2022
Leaders at East Midlands Ambulance Service - which serves Rutland - say an 'unacceptable' pattern of ambulances are spending hours waiting outside emergency departments to discharge patients is hampering response times.
Chief Executive of the service, Richard Henderson, said the service is also anticipating an "extremely challenging winter".
At the service's board meeting on October 4th, senior staff discussed current issues with hospital handover delays.
This means handovers can spend hours waiting to discharge patients into emergency departments.
In September, 4,800 hours were lost due to paramedics waiting outside hospitals to handover patients which was 4000 hours more than for the same period in 2021.
This comes as the service is averaging a lower number of incidents than what is expected for this time of year.
Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, Nichola Bramhall said the service is seeing "unprecedented levels" of serious incidents.
"Throughout the year we have reported 48 serious incidents with 65 per cent of those relating to delayed responses. Over half of those are in Lincolnshire."
"Last year in the same period we reported 28 serious incidents and that was another record year."
"We keep breaking records we really do not wish to break."
"We all have to remember that at the end of those stories stories is a family who is grieiving the loss of a loved one and staff who feel morally injured that they are not able to get there and deliver the levels of care."