By Anna Whittaker, Local Democracy Reporter
There has been a “significant improvement” in how quickly East Midlands Ambulance Service is able to hand patients over to care in hospitals.
Hospital handover delays can lead to paramedics spending hours waiting to discharge patients into emergency departments.
In July 2022, EMAS lost a total of 14,700 hours due to handover delays, which equated to an average of 429 hours a day.
But the latest statistics for July 2023 reveal that 6,218 hours were lost – or 214 hours a day on average.
The figures mean that ambulances are able to respond more quickly to incidents.
The ambulance service covers Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.
Chief Executive Richard Henderson said at a board meeting on August 1: “I am pleased to highlight the significant improvements that we have seen compared to the same time period last year.
“Significant amount of additional hours responding to patients and a significant amount of improvement particularly with category one and category two calls.”
The papers add that in July 2023, 48.9 per cent of patients were taken to A&E.
Mr Henderson said: “Less than half of the calls are being conveyed to A&E which is a real positive and we need to make recognition of that. A lot of work has been done behind the scenes to see some real, significant improvements.”
Ben Holdaway, Director of Operations, added: “Last July was a really difficult month in terms of hospital delays.
“Hospital delays are much better than July last year.
“All that together has led to a significant improvement in our response standards.”
EMAS has taken fewer calls too – in June 2023 the service took on average 290 fewer calls per day than it did in June 2022.
But compared to 2022/23 EMAS is responding to, on average, 65 more incidents a day.
Board papers stated: “The reduction in the amount of hours lost to hospital handover delays which we saw at the beginning of the year has continued through quarter one.
“We are losing significantly fewer hours than last year. Although lower than last year we still lost 7,284 hours in June which equates to 20 twelve hour shifts a day, still a significant number of hours to lose.
“The continued improvement in handover delays has enabled us to respond to patients quicker and has reduced the level of risk to patients waiting for a response from us.
“We continue to work collaboratively with our healthcare partners and regulators within the health systems to identify solutions to the delays and balance the risk across the whole system.”
