Patients spend hundreds of extra hours in Portsmouth ambulances with NHS 'bursting at the seams'

Hundreds of additional hours were spent in emergency vehicles caused by delays at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust last week. Health charity the King’s Fund said the NHS was ‘bursting at the seams’ as it recovers from the pandemic and attempts to meet a sharp rise in demand.

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Danielle Jefferies, analyst at the King's Fund, said improving ambulance delays has been a government priority for some time.

She added: ‘Problems at the hospital front door are indicative of issues at the back door.

‘People are being stranded in hospital because of a long-term lack of investment in social care and NHS community services.’

Think tank the Nuffield Trust said it is ‘painfully visible that ambulance services are under severe strain’. Data from NHS England shows 165 patients waited in an ambulance for at least one hour at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust A&E in the week to December 4.

A further 144 patients were forced to wait between 30 minutes and one hour and 34 per cent of the total 898 ambulance arrivals by half an hour or more – losing 331 hours of treatment.

NHS targets state trusts should complete 95 per cent of ambulance handovers within half an hour, and all need to be completed in an hour.

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Sarah Scobie, deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust, added the situation ‘continues to deteriorate’ as we head into the winter months.

Health secretary Steve Barclay said the Government is providing £8 billion in funding ‘to boost performance and recover services to pre-pandemic levels’.