Plan to cut ambulance wait times at Shropshire hospitals as handover crisis continues
As the crisis in ambulance handover delays continues hospital bosses in Shropshire say a new pilot scheme will help free up paramedics.
Intense pressure at Shropshire's two emergency hospitals, the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal, in Telford, have resulted in major issues, with delays at A&E and for the handover of ambulance patients for more than a year.
The situation has seen the trust which manages the hospitals, Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust (SaTH), signing up to a West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) initiative designed to tackle the problems.
Patients arriving in ambulances are routinely waiting in the back of the vehicles with paramedics while they wait for a space in A&E – frequently for more than 10 hours.
The situation means ambulance crews waiting with patients are unable to respond to fresh emergency calls – leaving some people waiting significantly longer than they should for help.
WMAS said that SaTH had signed up to its new pilot, where it is employing staff to work in 'ambulance decision areas' – effectively part of the hospital where ambulance patients can wait and be looked after by dedicated staff, before they can be admitted to A&E.
Now SaTH has also commented on its decision to take part in the initiative, which it hopes will improve issues at the hospitals.
Karen Evans, interim deputy chief operating officer at SaTH, said: “We continue to work with our health and social care system partners to improve flow through the hospitals for the benefit of our patients.
“We will soon be introducing an Ambulance Decision Area at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
"This will see a dedicated West Midlands Ambulance Service and SaTH Emergency Department team looking after patients collaboratively in hospital rather than on ambulances, which will help to free up ambulances to respond to new emergency calls.”
Queuing ambulances have become a regular sight outside the county's hospitals – only on Sunday morning, nine ambulances were queuing outside Princess Royal Hospital while they waited to hand patients over.
It comes as figures provided to the Shropshire Star show the continuing state of waiting times at the county's hospitals – and the resulting distressing experiences for the patients involved.
For the week up to October 27, four consecutive days saw patients waiting in the back of ambulances for more than 10 hours outside Royal Shrewsbury.
The successive longest wait times from October 22 were 10 hours 36 minutes, 11 hours 32 minutes, 10 hours 28 minutes, and ten hours two minutes.
In total, ambulances spent 562 hours waiting outside Shrewsbury.
At Telford, where the longest wait was seven hours 46 minutes, the total hours lost waiting were 453.
Across both hospitals the longest average wait came at Shrewsbury on October 26, at 144 minutes per person, and at Telford on October 23, at 139 minutes.
The situation means that the number of patients waiting over 15 minutes to be handed over was 312 at Telford, and 250 at Royal Shrewsbury.
