Shrewsbury and Telford hospital fined for ambulance handover delays

A new fines system penalising slow clinical handovers of patients between ambulance services and hospital trusts was introduced in April.

Figures from the West Midlands Ambulance Service show that in its first month of operation, 26 patients had to wait more than an hour for their handover at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, with 207 facing a delay of 30 minutes or more. Handovers are meant to take less than 15 minutes.

A further 132 patients also suffered delays at the Princess Royal Hospital, taking the total fines for the the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust to over £100,000.

The new system means hospital trusts are fined £200 for each wait of more than 30 minutes and £1,000 for delays of more than an hour.

However, the new system is having a major impact in Shropshire in cutting delays, ambulance bosses have said.

West Midlands Ambulance Service was itself fined £1,060 for delays at both hospitals in April relating to the time taken for ambulances to leave the sites after handing over patients.

But Murray MacGregor, a spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance Service, said that the new fines system was resulting in major improvements to the speed of handovers.

"If you go back to the end of March, WMAS was losing 450 hours a day with ambulances waiting at hospitals. It was the equivalent of 35 ambulances not being used," he said.

"Now what we lose is 20 to 30 hours per day. I think May will be a much better month when the data comes out.

"If you look at the level of delays they have come down very rapidly in March and April, the number of delays is now very small.

"That is testament to the hard work of hospitals."

Peter Herring, chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, said that the trust was yet to be officially informed of the £100,000 fine it is facing.

But he added that he believed it was "inappropriate" for hospitals to be fined given the current pressures on the NHS.

"I do sympathise with the ambulance service. They can't afford to have ambulances waiting in hospitals. My staff aim to take patients off ambulances as quickly as possible," he said.

"A&E departments and assessment units are under sever pressure themselves. In April, the whole country was under severe pressure and it is pretty inappropriate for acute hospitals to be penalised.

"I can't afford to lose £100,000 out of my budget every month."