The Royal Free Hospital

HOSPITAL emergency departments are “very busy” with NHS staff pushed to breaking point. Official figures show that more than 100 patients were left waiting in ambulances for more than an hour before being admitted to the Royal Free A&E in the week before Christmas.

Delays to the “hand-over” between paramedics and emergency departments – caused by bed and staff shortages – are part of reason ambulance workers walked out on strike.

Terry Nicholls, from the College of Paramedics, said queues of ambulances were routinely waiting outside A&Es, adding the delays were also affecting morale as “patients remain in the community desperate for the care they can provide”.

Government ministers say the root cause of the handover crisis is beds being taken up by patients whose discharge has been unnecessarily delayed.

According to official statistics reported by the NHS trusts, 109 patients waited for over an hour in an ambulance before being admitted to the A&E at the Royal Free in the week before Christmas.The week before the figure was 171.

The Free has introduced a system that sees nurses leave the hospital and go to assess patients while they wait in ambulances.

A Royal Free statement said: “Like hospitals across the country, our emergency departments and urgent treatment centres are currently very busy and we would like to say a huge thank you to staff for their continued hard work during these challenging winter months.” At the Whittington more than 10 per cent of patients were held in ambulances for­ more than an hour.