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| Hospital handovers key to faster responses, says 999 boss | |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| The South West ranked highest in NHS England's figures which showed time lost to ambulance handover delays | The South West ranked highest in NHS England's figures which showed time lost to ambulance handover delays |
| Ambulance response times will improve when patients can be handed over more quickly to hospitals, says the head of the South Western Ambulance Service. | |
| Staff were "desperately trying to do the job that they joined the ambulance service to do", said Will Warrender. | Staff were "desperately trying to do the job that they joined the ambulance service to do", said Will Warrender. |
| The South West recently ranked highest in NHS England's figures which showed time lost to ambulance handover delays. | The South West recently ranked highest in NHS England's figures which showed time lost to ambulance handover delays. |
| Hours measured from 14 November 2022 to 8 January 2023 show 892.4 hours were lost in the service's region. | |
| Will Warrender said there was a glimmer of hope for faster responses with recent improvements | Will Warrender said there was a glimmer of hope for faster responses with recent improvements |
| Mr Warrender, the service's chief executive, told the BBC: "The quicker response times will be returned to once we are able to handover our patients into hospitals quicker than we can at the moment. | |
| "So, in December, we lost about a third of our ambulances across the month because they were sat outside hospital waiting to offload patients. | |
| "That's a problem clearly for the patients in the ambulances, and it's a problem for patients in the community who we can't get to. | |
| "And it's a problem for my own team who were sat there desperately trying to do the job that they joined the ambulance service to do." | "And it's a problem for my own team who were sat there desperately trying to do the job that they joined the ambulance service to do." |
| He added: "A slight glimmer of hope is that we've seen a real improvement in the last two weeks or so with a drop in activity levels or improvement in handover delays. | He added: "A slight glimmer of hope is that we've seen a real improvement in the last two weeks or so with a drop in activity levels or improvement in handover delays. |
| "It's no fault of any one part of the system. | "It's no fault of any one part of the system. |
| "This is why we keep talking about all the different parts of the system coming together, pulling together to resolve the situation that we find ourselves in." | "This is why we keep talking about all the different parts of the system coming together, pulling together to resolve the situation that we find ourselves in." |
| Will Warrender said there had been an improvement in response times | |
| He said that ahead of strike days ambulance staff had "worked really hard with colleagues across the health and social care sector, to ensure that we're able to provide as safe a service as we possibly can" while the industrial action was carried out. | He said that ahead of strike days ambulance staff had "worked really hard with colleagues across the health and social care sector, to ensure that we're able to provide as safe a service as we possibly can" while the industrial action was carried out. |
| Emergency care assistant Chris Kent told BBC Radio Cornwall of the long waits: "It can be very frustrating for the patients, they can become quite agitated ... It's very uncomfortable. | |
| "Likewise, for us as crews ... many of us are starting to suffer from muscular-skeletal injuries from sitting at the hospital for so long." | |
| He said the situation was "demoralising" and had got "drastically" worse over the past four years he had been in the job. | |
| The South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust (SWASFT) covers Bristol and the former Avon area, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. | |
| Ambulance staff belonging to three unions - GMB, Unison and Unite - are on strike on Monday in a dispute over pay. | |
| Follow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk. | Follow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk. |