Ambulance services in England and Wales are struggling to hit performance targets and reporting record-long delays, ahead of Wednesday’s strike action by staff.
Here is a snapshot of the latest data:
– Handover delays
Ambulance handover delays at hospitals in England hit a new high at the start of this month.
One in six patients (17%) in the week to December 4 waited more than an hour to be passed to A&E teams, while just over one in three (34%) had to wait at least 30 minutes, according to NHS England.
The numbers are higher than at any point in recent winters.
NHS trusts in England have a target of 95% of all ambulance handovers to be completed within 30 minutes, with 100% to be completed within 60 minutes.
An estimated 39,000 patients in England experienced potential harm in November as a result of delays of more than 60 minutes, with around 4,000 experiencing severe harm, according to the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives.
A handover delay does not always mean a patient has waited in the ambulance, as they may have been moved into an A&E department where staff were not available to complete the handover.
But the increasing level of delays reflects the struggle faced by hospitals in finding space for new arrivals.
An average of 22,343 people per day across England were fit enough to leave hospital in the week to December 4, of which 41% were discharged while 59% stayed in their beds.
The discharge rate of 41% is down from 46% in the equivalent week last December.
In Wales, patient handovers from ambulance staff should take place within 15 minutes of the vehicle’s arrival.
Just 18.2% of patients in October were handed over within 15 minutes, the second lowest figure on record, according to data published by the Emergency Ambulance Services Committee.
The lowest figure was 17.5% in September 2022.
– Response times
Ambulances in England have a target response time of seven minutes for the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest.
This has not been met nationwide since April 2021, and in November 2022 the average response time for these incidents outside London was nine minutes and 26 seconds, figures from NHS England show.
Data for London is not currently available.
The target response time for emergency calls, such as burns, epilepsy and strokes, is 18 minutes.
This has not been met nationwide since July 2020, while last month the average outside London was 48 minutes and eight seconds.
Response times last month for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged two hours, 43 minutes and five seconds outside London.
There is no target for all urgent calls, but nine out of 10 incidents are meant to be responded to in less than two hours – and in November, nine out of 10 outside London were responded to in less than six hours, 40 minutes and 57 seconds.
Meanwhile, ambulance response times in Wales for the most serious of incidents fell to a record low in October, with just 48% of ambulances arriving at red calls – meaning the patient is in imminent danger of death – within the target of eight minutes.
The operational standard is 65%.
For amber calls – classed as serious but not immediately life-threatening – ambulances took less than two hours, 46 minutes and 33 seconds to respond to 65% of incidents, the third longest time for this measure.
