Thursday, March 08, 2012
Unacceptable Ambulance delays
This morning's Western Mail highlights Welsh Liberal Democrat research which reveals that ambulances have wasted the equivalent of nine years waiting outside Welsh A&E units to offload sick and injured patients.
This amounts to a loss of more than 80,000 hours in just the past two years and means that emergency ambulances are effectively taken off the road and unable to respond to other life-threatening calls.
At an estimated cost of £76 for each “lost unit hour”, delays at A&E are draining some £3m a year from the under-pressure Welsh Ambulance Service.
I raised a case of a constitutent with the Health Minister yesterday who had been taken to Morriston Accident and Emergency unit where six ambulances were waiting to disembark their patients. She then waited for 23 hours on a trolley until she could be transferred to a bed.
Clearly, these delays are unacceptable and amount to a systemic failure in the health service. More effort needs to be put into putting it right.
This amounts to a loss of more than 80,000 hours in just the past two years and means that emergency ambulances are effectively taken off the road and unable to respond to other life-threatening calls.
At an estimated cost of £76 for each “lost unit hour”, delays at A&E are draining some £3m a year from the under-pressure Welsh Ambulance Service.
I raised a case of a constitutent with the Health Minister yesterday who had been taken to Morriston Accident and Emergency unit where six ambulances were waiting to disembark their patients. She then waited for 23 hours on a trolley until she could be transferred to a bed.
Clearly, these delays are unacceptable and amount to a systemic failure in the health service. More effort needs to be put into putting it right.
Comments:
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Bit off-piste, but I'm covering the First Minister's trip to Washington, DC on my facebook page as time and circumstances permit.
Christopher Wood
His landing at DC was to put it mildly, 'interesting'.
Christopher Wood
His landing at DC was to put it mildly, 'interesting'.
# posted by 
: 12:57 PM
: 12:57 PM
It wouldn't be fair of me to fill up AM Peter Black's website pages -> be resourceful or ask a nephew et al to get you on Facebook.
# posted by : 6:55 PM
: 6:55 PM
This is another example of work being split into seperate organisations each with their own targets. The loser? The patient of course.
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# posted by : 7:35 PM
: 7:35 PM<< Home
