Stroke patients in London had to wait over an hour for ambulance, new NHS data shows

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a wave patients with “urgent” conditions wait more than an hour for a ambulanceNew data shows as UK ERs are also experiencing one of their worst months on record.

New figures released by NHS England revealed on Thursday that ambulances took an hour and a minute on average in July to respond to a Category 2 “emergency call”.

These are patients with conditions such as stroke, severe burns or sepsis.

Wait times are more than three times longer than the target of 18 minutes, and just seconds shorter than the longest average wait time ever, set in March 2020. They are broadly in line with waiting times across England, where patients were 59 minutes. had to wait. average.

The most urgent ‘Category 1’ calls for ‘life-threatening’ cases in London were answered in an average of eight minutes and three seconds, faster than the UK average of nine minutes and 35 seconds.

However, this was still longer than the seven-minute target.

Richard Webber of the College of Paramedics told Sky News that staffing problems and a shortage of beds in care homes were among the causes of waiting times nationwide.

“I spent three or four hours with a patient a weekend or two ago who was quite unwell,” he said.

“Normally I would see six or eight patients in a 12-hour shift. Now I can see two or three patients so effectively that the available ambulances have been cut in half. Why is that? Because I’m outside the emergency room.”

A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said: “We are extremely busy at the moment, receiving up to 7,000 emergency calls per day in July, compared to a pre-pandemic busy day of around 5,500 calls.

“However, we are working hard to help our sickest and most seriously injured patients as quickly as possible, and we would like to thank our dedicated staff and volunteers for their continued hard work and dedication.

“To help reduce delays and pressure where possible, we are working with hospitals and NHS partners across the capital to develop and implement new pathways and reduce transfer delays, as well as the number of road crews and staff in our control rooms.”

Separate data released Thursday showed a record number of patients who waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to an emergency room in England in July, and the lowest percentage of people seen within four hours.

A record 29,317 people had to wait more than 12 hours in UK emergency rooms in July for a decision to admit they had actually been admitted. The number of people waiting more than 12 hours from the time of arrival for admission is likely to be higher.

This is 33% more than the previous month’s 22,034, and is the highest for all calendar months in records dating back to August 2010.

A total of 71% of patients in England were seen within four hours of arriving in the emergency room last month, up from 72.1% in June – the worst performance ever.

This was also well below the target of 95% of patients to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. This target has not been achieved nationally since 2015.