Trust managing Walsall Manor Hospital fined £500k over ambulance waits

The ambulance service said people are being put at risk by crews being stuck at hospitals unable to leave.

Patients arriving by ambulance are supposed to be formally 'handed over' within half hour – 15 minutes to clinically transfer the care of the patient and 15 minutes for the crew to make the ambulance ready for the next person.

But between April last year and February there have been a total of 1,609 transfers which have taken longer than the target, while another 234 handover took longer than an hour.

Things did improve in February compared to January but the hospital still recorded 156 breaches in the month – 22 of which were over 60 minutes.

The national target is to have zero incidents at all.

So far the ruling trust has been slapped with a fine totalling £555,800.

Philip Thomas-Hands, chief operating officer, said: "Across the whole country, ambulance attendances are increasing, which in one sense is a good thing.

"People are a lot more aware of the signs of things like a stroke or a heart attack but their first port of call is to phone for an ambulance, which puts stresses on our A&E department as attendances there increase too.

"We will be working with our ambulance colleagues very closely over the coming months and should see an improvement in the summer months."

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: "Every time one of our crews is delayed, it has a significant knock-on effect on our ability to respond to 999 calls in a timely manner, which puts patients at risk."

Unsurprisingly the key month of January saw the most handover breaches in the last year. There were 297 cases that took over 30 minutes and 62 that took longer than 60 minutes.

The trust is fined £200 for every 30 minute breach and £1,000 for every 60 minute one.