37,000 people with “emergency” conditions, such as suspected
strokes or heart attacks, had to wait more than 3 hours and 40
minutes for an ambulance in December.
The average response time for so-called ‘Category 2 ambulance
calls’ was a staggering hour and 32 minutes, while one in ten
patients in this category waited three hours and 41 minutes or
longer. Category 2 is for “emergency calls” – for conditions such
as heart attacks and strokes. The response time is more than 12
TIMES the NHS target of 18 minutes.
Waiting times for “urgent” cases - for conditions such as late
stages of labour, non-severe burns, and diabetic attacks - also
reached record highs in December. The average response time for
Category 3 ambulance calls was 4 hours and 18 minutes, while
8,700 patients with such conditions waited more than 11 hours.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, MP, Leader of the Labour
Party, raised the case of Stephanie, a 26 year-old cancer patient
from Plymouth who died while waiting for an ambulance only 2.3
miles from a hospital on the 4th of January. The
Labour leader called on the Prime Minister to apologise for “the
lethal chaos he is presiding over.”
, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social
Care, said:
“Patients can no longer rely on the NHS being there for them in
an emergency. Heart attack and stroke victims are left waiting
hours for an ambulance, when every second counts.
“That is the terrifying reality after 13 years of Conservative
mismanagement of the health service.
“Labour will provide the biggest expansion of NHS staff in
history to treat patients on time again, and reform the health
service to make it fit for the future. We will train 7,500 more
doctors and 10,000 more nurses and midwives every year, paid for
by abolishing the non-dom tax status. Patients need doctors and
nurses more than the wealthiest need a tax break.”
Ends
Notes
- The number of people waiting three and a half hours or longer
is derived from the 90thpercentile for Category 2
ambulance response times, which is 3 hours 41 minutes. This means
that 10% of patients waited this long or longer.
- All data from Ambulance Quality Indicators Data 2022-23,
link
