December was officially the worst month ever for ambulance hospital handover delays, with 48,000 hours lost across the West Midlands.
West Midlands Ambulance Service said there had been a significant improvement in handover delays this month
The situation is key to the ambulance service's ability to respond to calls – with its response times frequently affected by the lack of crews available to answer fresh emergencies.During December for the most serious calls – Category One, which are life threatening injuries and illnesses, such as cardiac arrest – a patient in the Telford area waited a total of three hours and 24 minutes for a response.
The figures show that during December 10,135 patients waited in the back of an ambulance at a hospital in the West Midlands for more than an hour.
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