Ambulances wait beyond 60 minutes to hand over patients

Delays at hospital emergency departments are forcing ambulances to wait over an hour to hand over patients on at least 1,100 occasions every month, new figures show.

The vast majority of hospitals are failing to meet Health Service Executive target times for ambulance turnarounds, thereby forcing paramedics to endure long waits to hand over patients, get their trolleys back and return to responding to calls.

Just four out of 26 hospitals managed to hit the target of turning around 50 per cent of ambulances in under 20 minutes, the figures from the HSE for last May show.

Tallaght children’s hospital had the best record, hitting the 20-minute target for 58 per cent of ambulances. Navan, Connolly and St James’s hospitals also turned around a majority of ambulances within the target time.

‘Alarming’

Mayo general hospital was the worst-performing hospital, with almost 18 per cent of ambulances having to wait over an hour before they could resume transports. Large numbers of ambulances also had to wait over an hour in University Hospital Galway and Cork University Hospital.

"It is quite alarming that an ambulance going to either of these two hospitals is almost twice as likely to have to wait an hour or more than to reach the turnaround target," said Fianna Fáil spokesman Billy Kelleher.

“Missing turnaround targets has a knock-on effect for the ambulance service as it makes it harder to respond to new call outs in the target time if paramedics are delayed at hospitals.”

Many of the hospitals with low turnaround rates also experience emergency department overcrowding, he said. “The delays in transferring patients are clearly not the fault of the ambulance service. Rather they are symptomatic of the ongoing difficulties in our acute hospitals,” added Mr Kelleher.

Handovers

The average turnaround time for ambulances varied from under 22 minutes in Connolly hospital to almost 45 minutes in Mayo, according to the figures provided by the HSE to Mr Kelleher.

Overall, 29 per cent of ambulances were dealt with in under 20 minutes, 58 per cent in under 30 minutes and 94 per cent in under an hour. Almost 6 per cent took over an hour to process.

The 2016 HSE service plan says acute hospitals and the ambulance service will work together to reduce emergency department handover delays, thereby improving ambulance turnaround times.