‘It’s going to be a terrible winter’: ambulance queues warn of early crisis for NHS

Efforts to speed up the transfer of patients into the care of hospitals have not succeeded. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

On a cold and grey afternoon last week, senior paramedic Glenn Carrington once again faced a familiar but grim situation: a four-hour wait in a queue of ambulances outside a city hospital waiting to hand over a patient.

There was no risk to the patient on this occasion, but to Carrington, a paramedic for nearly four decades, the warning signs were clear: the NHS was starting to slide into another winter crisis.