Ambulances are being made to wait at busy A&E units as there are not enough staff to take the patients, figures in England reveal.
When an ambulance arrives at hospital, A&E staff are supposed to take over the care of the patient within 15 minutes, leaving the ambulance free to attend other 999 calls.
Data reveals that this target is not being achieved, and that the number of ambulances having to wait for more than an hour has almost trebled in two years.
In 2015 to 2016, 76,000 ambulances waited for more than an hour to hand-over a patient, up from 28,000 in 2013 to 2014.
Those having to wait more than 30 minutes rose from 258,000 to 413,000 in the same period – an increase of 60%.
In one incident this year, an ambulance in the West Midlands was made to wait for four hours.
NHS bosses say that “increasing demand” is to blame, with the pressure on A&E units being so great that no one is available to see to ambulance patients within the required time.
Ambulance crews must stay with their patient until the hand-over is complete, making them unavailable to attend other emergency 999 calls.
It has been suggested that this is one of the reasons why ambulances are failing to meet their target of reaching a critically ill patient within eight minutes.
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