Paramedics forced to wait for longest time with ill patients

Paramedics forced to wait for longest time with ill patients

10 April 2024

STARTLING new figures obtained by health campaigners have revealed the Ulster Hospital has the longest turnaround time for ambulances in the province.

A Freedom of Information request submitted by the Down Community Health Committee for the time it takes from when an ambulance arrives at hospital with a patient to when it leaves and is clear to respond to emergency calls, focused on November last year.

Shockingly, the figures revealed the longest handover time for one patient was 16 hours at the Ulster, with the average turnaround time for ambulances taking patients — many of them from Down District — to the hospital in Dundonald being two hours, 27 minutes and 13 seconds.

The Ulster has the longest average turnaround time or any of the country’s 11 hospitals, with the second longest recorded at Craigavon Area Hospital where the time was one hour, 30 minutes and six seconds.

The figures were debated by hospital campaigners and politicians at a meeting in Downpatrick on Monday evening.

The group’s chairman, Mr Eamonn McGrady, said a request was made for November turnaround times as campaigners had been getting reports of issues arising at hospitals, the delays due to ambulances being caught up and patient handovers and the difficulties arising from that.

Reflecting on the turnaround times, Mr McGrady said there was something wrong in the systems in some places.

“I can’t but think that part of the issue here is the configuration of emergency services in the South Eastern Trust area and the way that services have been reduced at the Downe and Lagan Valley, the latter which is practically in Belfast anyway.”

Mr McGrady said the Ambulance Service had admitted that the service is under considerable pressure due primarily to the challenges faced across the health and social care system resulting in an extended periods of patient handover for its crews at emergency departments across the region.

“Clearly, in the opinion of the Trust, a significant part of the reason why you can’t get an ambulance response is because of these handover times at hospitals, that is why they are important,” he continued, explaining the issue at the Ulster is directly impacting on the service for the local community. 

“Over and over again this issue has been raised and over and over again we have been told that there would be all sorts of initiatives and times would change and this and that would be done.

“It’s now time for the Department of Health to intervene on this issue and get it sorted once and for all and to have a simple, legislative basis for an entitlement framework for service provision for healthcare across Northern Ireland.

“To have anyone kept in an ambulance for 16 hours is not acceptable.”

South Down MP Chris Hazzard has written to Health Minister Robin Swann and the South Eastern Trust in the wake of the ambulance turnaround time revelation.

“The average handover time for hospitals is one hour 16 minutes, whereas on average it takes the Ulster Hospital two hours 27 minutes, which is completely unacceptable,” the MP declared.

“Worryingly the maximum handover time at the Ulster Hospital is 16 hours which is much worse than any other hospital and a shocking illustration of the patient experience.”

Mr Hazzard said the inability to release ambulances back to the South Down area had been a persistent feature of emergency care at the Ulster Hospital and it appears the issue is getting worse, not better. 

He said ambulance staff did not receive training specific to the needs of patients left waiting for a prolonged time period in the back of a vehicle. 

“This is unacceptable for the patient and unfair on the Ambulance Service clinicians who find themselves repeatedly trapped in this predicament,” Mr Hazzard continued.

“This is an intolerable situation and one that must be addressed urgently,” he added.

South Down MLA Colin McGrath, who is meeting with the chief executive of the Ambulance Service tomorrow, said the organisation insists there is not a staffing issue.

“It sees the problem as staff being stuck outside hospitals and that having more staff to compensate does not help. The Trust says if you sort out what’s happening outside emergency departments, it will have enough staff,” he added.