‘No easy answer’ to fixing delays in ambulance response times across Nottinghamshire

New East Midlands Ambulance Service figures show the organisation missed all its response targets for category one and two emergencies across Nottinghamshire in the year to July.

This was partly put down to difficulties in handing patients over once ambulance crews have taken them to hospitals.

One councillor recounted her father having to wait hours for an ambulance to arrive at his home, before finding ‘rows’” of patients and paramedics left waiting on wards because the hospital had a backlog in dealing with admissions.

The EMAS figures revealed crews failed to meet their average seven-minute target for category one incidents – classed as immediately life-threatening – in every month between August 2021 and July 2022.

This was replicated for category two emergencies – not classed as life-threatening, but requiring an immediate response – with some patients waiting longer than two hours for an ambulance.

Coun Michelle Walsh told Nottinghamshire Council’s health scrutiny committee: “I phoned an ambulance for my father and was told he would have to wait five-six hours.

“When I went to pick him up, there were 22 trolleys all with two EMAS staff members and paperwork waiting hours. One reason people aren’t getting an ambulance is because staff are in a corridor in hospitals.”

The committee was told Nottinghamshire figures are lower than other parts of the EMAS region, which includes Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland.

Greg Cox, EMAS Nottinghamshire divisional director, said: “There’s no easy answer to this, but I wish there was. I wish it was as simple as EMAS needing more money to invest in extra staff, but this wouldn’t cut it on its own.

“It’s the hours we’re losing [to hospital turnover] and more about the patient flow, what availability hospitals have to discharge patients, because that gives them the ability to take patients off us.”

The meeting heard the wider network is under ‘sustained pressure’.

Caroline Nolan, of Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board, said: “Don’t call an ambulance if you don’t need one. Every person who spends too long in the emergency department, will probably then spend too long in a ward.”