Lincolnshire hospitals are seeing improvements in ambulance handovers

A Lincolnshire Police constable tweeted how officers blue-lighted an unconscious patient 20 miles to hospital in a police van due to a three hour wait time.

He said they found ambulances “backed up” when they arrived, as further police officers were also on scene with patients while he was there.

A United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust Board Meeting will be told that there had been a slight reduction in handover delays of more than an hour compared to August.

In August, there were 930 over 59 minute waits compared to 885 in September, a 4.84 per cent decrease.

The report also notes that waits of over two hours had also decreased from 517 to 426 and waits over more than four hours reduced from 123 to 100.

Despite this, overall ambulance arrivals increased by 2.6 per cent.

A report before hospital chiefs said “early intelligence” of increasing East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) demand had allowed for early planning and preparedness with contact throughout the day to examine active calls by district and potential conveyance site.

Ahead of the meeting, a hospital spokesman said: “Delays in ambulance handovers to our hospitals are the result of increasing demand on our urgent and emergency care services, often with patients who now have more complex needs.

“This increase means that our patients are staying much longer in our hospitals than previously experienced and this challenges our ability to secure the required flow and discharge from hospital.

“Sadly, this results in a longer wait time for beds for new patients requiring acute inpatient care.”

They said the patients included those who were admitted from Accident and Emergency, same day emergency care areas and those arriving by ambulance.

“We have seen some improvement in the number of handover delays and the length of time that ambulances wait outside our hospitals for handover,” they said.