Ambulances are being treated like ‘extra wards’ as patients are left outside hospital for up to three hours, say paramedics. Staff have told how ambulance handovers are taking hours, claiming ‘it isn’t safe’ as the NHS struggles under severe pressure.
The Manchester Evening News has covered how patients are waiting hours from the time they call 999 to actually getting help from an ambulance - if paramedics manage to reach them at all. But what happens when sick people finally reach hospital? They must endure a second queue, often hours long, as they wait to be seen by stretched doctors trying to allocate an increasingly scare supply of beds.
