Exclusive: handover delays across England are also causing permanent harm to those needing urgent care
People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed.
Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England.
A patient died after spending about an hour in an ambulance outside Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge on 24 October. The patient had suffered a cardiac arrest. The hospital said the patient had “remained in the ambulance due to significant pressures on A&E”.
John Swinney, Scotland’s deputy first minister, last week apologised for the “agony” endured by the family of Richard Brown, who died on the stairs outside his flat in Glasgow after waiting five hours for an ambulance
A patient died of a cardiac arrest in Worcestershire royal hospital in Worcester on 4 October after waiting five hours in an ambulance outside. Paramedics warned A&E staff the patient was having trouble breathing but the patient died despite being rushed into the resuscitation room.
A woman died in eastern England last month after waiting an hour for an ambulance crew to reach her on what should have been a seven-minute response. No crews were available in the 50 miles between Cromer and Waveney in Norfolk, so an ambulance from Ipswich in Suffolk had to answer the 999 call.