Ambulance crews stuck at A&E miss thousands of 999 calls a day in England

Ambulances queued outside a London hospital in January. One crew recently had to wait eight hours to hand over a patient, a paramedic said. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Paramedics in England are unable to respond to 100,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients, endangering thousands of lives, the Guardian can reveal.

As the crisis engulfing the NHS intensified this weekend, figures showed ambulance crews are tied up at A&E for so long that on more than 3,500 occasions each day they are unable to respond to a 999 plea for help.