Ambulance service boss says it must keep working to hit original target hospital handover times

An EMAS ambulance at Queen's Medical Centre
By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
The boss of East Midlands Ambulance Service says it must now work towards getting hospital handover delays down to a 15 minute national target after making progress at local A&E departments.
In December Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), which runs the Queen’s Medical Centre (QMC), committed to 45 minute handovers to free up ambulance crews to better respond to more emergencies.
The initiative has helped cut ambulance handover times at the QMC’s emergency department from one hour 30 minutes in January last year to 38 minutes as of January this year.
During an East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) meeting on Tuesday (February 4) Greg Cox, divisional director for Nottinghamshire, said: “It has reduced handover times.
“Last winter activity was higher, but nevertheless that is a significant gain.”
However national guidance still says patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance must be handed over to the care of staff within 15 minutes.
Richard Henderson, EMAS chief executive, said: “Forty five minutes should be a backstop – and not a target.
“There is a real risk we could become focused on 45 minutes, and the constitutional time remains 15 minutes for a clinical handover, and we have got to really make sure we keep that momentum going.”
During a Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) board meeting in January, Mark Simmonds, the trust’s deputy medical director, said the pilot had negatively affected emergency department staff.
He said it had led to more incidences of ‘corridor care’ – where patients end up waiting on beds in hospital corridors before admission.
Mr Cox said there were further incidents of care on the back of ambulances outside the hospital.
“What unfortunately we have switched to, which is not ideal, is that where the acute side feels pressure they do hold our patients on the ambulances,” he said.
“We are still left holding and being responsible for our patients.”
But he added: “However there is significant improvement in our handover times at Queen’s Medical Centre.”
The drop in handover delays has also led to better response times to calls in the community.
Mr Cox said it had been taking over an hour to get to category two patients – such as those with chest pains or stroke symptoms – in November.
The initiative has helped reduced this to 33 minutes. The national target response for category two calls is 30 minutes.
“There is still some work to do, but it is a significant improvement and a clear correlation between handover times, delays and our ability to respond to our patients,” Mr Cox added.
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