Ambulance crews stuck at A&E miss thousands of 999 calls a day in England
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Exclusive: paramedics unable to respond to 100,000 calls a month as they wait to hand over patients. Paramedics in England are unable to respond to 100,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients, endangering thousands of lives, the Guardian can reveal.
As the crisis engulfing the NHS intensified this weekend, figures showed ambulance crews are tied up at A&E for so long that on more than 3,500 occasions each day they are unable to respond to a 999 plea for help. In total, there were 1,313,218 lost job cycles in the past year as a direct result of ambulance handover delays, an analysis of NHS data by the Guardian and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) found.
Doctors said the figures were “jaw-dropping” and called on ministers to take immediate action to tackle the handover delays. Patient groups said it was “incredibly frightening” that paramedics were unable to respond to thousands of emergency calls because they were stuck in queues outside hospitals.
The revelations follow a Guardian investigation that exposed how more than 1,000 patients a day were experiencing “potential harm” while left in the back of ambulances outside hospitals. In total, ambulances spent 1,641,522 hours waiting outside A&E to hand over patients in the year to November 2024.
