'Septic patients' were held outside hospitals on ambulances without air conditioning on the hottest days on record in the UK, according to paramedics in North West Ambulance Service (NWAS). The news comes as doctors have admitted severe bed shortages, resulting in patients waiting for hours because there is no space to safely put them.
NWAS paramedics have come forward to share stories of their experiences over the heatwave, saying that severely ill patients were kept in baking ambulances as hospitals struggled to relieve them. Ambulance handovers - where paramedics transfer care of a patient brought in via ambulance over to hospital staff - were taking up to three hours in the run up to the heatwave as hospitals have been full, says a regional paramedic.
The waiting time to actually see a doctor in Greater Manchester can vary anywhere between two and more than eight hours, one doctor told the Manchester Evening News last week. NHS staff say they are fighting to fit incoming patients on wards but cannot discharge people as the social care sector suffers chronic shortages - leaving people ‘stuck in corridors’.
