Ambulance wait times highest ever in the West Midlands

Ambulances in England took an average of 59 minutes and seven seconds last month to respond to emergency calls such as burns, epilepsy and strokes.

This is up from 51 minutes and 38 seconds in June, and is well above the target of 18 minutes.

The target standard response time for urgent incidents is seven minutes.

In the West Midlands, ambulances lost 43,759 hours waiting outside of hospitals last month, making it the worst ever for the region.

Times from the service have been gradually growing since 2019, where time lost for WMAS was 6835 hours.

That's a jump of 36,924 hours in three years for the West Midlands.

In a statement from the West Midlands Ambulance it said: “The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly. Sadly, the pressures we are seeing in health and social care lead to long hospital handover delays with our crews left caring for patients that need admitting to hospital rather than responding to the next call. The result is that our crews are delayed reaching patients.

“We are working incredibly hard with all of our NHS and social care partners to prevent these delays, looking at new ways to safely hand over patients quickly so that our crews can respond more rapidly and save more lives.”

MP for North Shropshire , Helen Morgan, said: "The figures that have come out today are really shocking because they show that people who have a serious issue, like a heart attack or a stroke, are waiting for an hour for an ambulance to arrive and that's four times longer than in 2019 and well in excess of the target.

"So, they're extremely concerning figures. I've talked about it on many occasions in Parliament, we've had so many heart breaking examples from constituents who have contacted us.

"It's time now for the Government to stop tweaking around the edges and commission a Care Quality Commission review to get to the heart of this problem, and to find adequate funding to ensure that when people need an ambulance, when their life is threatened that one is going to arrive on time."

The average response time in July for ambulances in England dealing with the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, was nine minutes and 35 seconds, NHS England figures show.

This is up from nine minutes and six seconds in June, and is the joint longest average response time for this category of incidents since current records began in 2017.

Response times for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged three hours, 17 minutes and six seconds.