Thousands of patients each week are being stranded for long stretches in ambulances outside overflowing British hospitals, a growing crisis that has likely contributed to scores of deaths, health care leaders said Thursday.
The U.K.'s ambulance service is seizing up in some areas as the country’s health system faces an inferno of pressures, including rising demand for care after pandemic restrictions were eased; a surge in flu and other winter viruses after two lockdown years; and staff shortages from pandemic burnout and a post-Brexit drought of European workers in Britain. Thousands of hospital beds are also occupied by people who are fit to be discharged but have nowhere to go because of a dearth of places for long-term care.
