Ambulances making '200-mile trips' to help patients

Ambulance crews are having to make 200-mile round trips to reach emergency patients in north Staffordshire amid hospital handover delays in the county, a senior official has said.

Vivek Khasu, strategy and engagement director at West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS), said there were times when crews had to be sent from as far away as Warwick or Hereford to respond to 999 calls in Staffordshire.

Khasu said it was "not right", and "robust conversations" were taking place with NHS partners to address the handover problems.

Ian Syme, a campaigner for NHS improvements, called for greater political pressure to be brought on the issue.

Khasu was speaking at the monthly meeting of North Staffordshire Pensioners Convention (NSPC) to explain the situation faced by WMAS.

He said the service had been losing up to a third of its capacity because of lengthy delays for crews outside emergency departments.

Locally, ambulance handover delays remain high at University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM), the trust running Royal Stoke Hospital and Stafford's County Hospital.

In June, handovers were taking one hour and 24 minutes on average. The national target is 15 minutes.

Khasu said the ambulances "we already have [across the West Midlands" needed to be "out there doing their job", and "shouldn't have to backfill" to offset such challenges.

"But that's currently where we are," he said.

UHNM has taken various steps to reduce waiting times at Royal Stoke A&E this year, including improved frailty assessments and better use of the discharge lounge.

Khasu said WMAS had three years ago invested "£25m in additional resources", but increasing capacity to address the issues was "not a sustainable solution".

Newcastle MP Adam Jogee said he would raise the issue with UHNM chief executive Simon Constable.

Syme said he sought reassurance that monitoring of handover delays - and that they did not exceed 45 minutes - was being carried out robustly by UHNM.

On a more positive note, the NSPC audience heard that Staffordshire was the best place in the West Midlands for diverting patients away from emergency departments to more appropriate community services, with up to 70 patients a day being treated this way.

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