All but three Shropshire-based ambulances left waiting outside A&Es
Almost all ambulances based in Shropshire were left waiting outside the county's two A&E departments on Wednesday, with handover times of up to six hours.
West Midlands Ambulance Service said 23 of its 26 vehicles had waited to handover patients at one point during the afternoon.
The service has apologised repeatedly to families and patients in recent months for not being able to respond to calls as quickly as it would have liked.
Earlier this week, Mark Docherty, director of nursing and clinical commissioning at WMAS, said that ambulances having to queue while waiting outside hospitals to hand over patients across the region had become a big issue, but that action is being taken to try to improve the situation.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, has also said actions are being taken to try and address delays.
Bosses have said demand for urgent care is at unprecedented levels, although it is working jointly with WMAS and community partners to reduce conveyances of some patients to hospital where appropriate.
Other actions include a £9.3m upgrade of the emergency department in Shrewsbury.
It is hoped that Future Fit will help to address the issues in the longer term by creating a new, dedicated and larger emergency care site.
It comes as WMAS reported a rise in the number of 999 calls during the Christmas period compared with 2019.
Over the five days from December 24 to 28, the trust took no fewer than 22,826 emergency calls.
It compare to 19,467 for the same dates in 2019 and is equivalent to a 17.3 per cent increase.
