Ambulance plan to cut chronic handover delays at county hospitals

West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) has faced huge challenges at the county's emergency hospitals over the past 12 months, with patients regularly waiting for long hours in the back of ambulances to be transferred to A&E.

The issue has had a major impact on the ambulance service's ability to respond to emergencies, with crews often waiting at hospitals while fresh patients face major delays in crews getting out to help them.

In September the ambulance service waited for 1,590 hours outside both Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital, Telford, with predictions that the situation is set to get worse over the winter months.

Now WMAS has confirmed that Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust, has said it wishes to trial its new plan, where specially trained ambulance workers set up at the hospitals and look after patients who otherwise would be waiting on the back of ambulances.

They will work in what are called 'Ambulance Decision Areas' at the hospitals.

The move frees up ambulances to respond to fresh emergency calls, and patients wait with the dedicated WMAS 'cohorting' team until they can be seen in A&E.

The plan has been trialled at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and Heartlands.

A report for the ambulance trust board explains that more than 50 people have been taken on in a mix of band seven paramedic roles, and ambulance health care assistants.

The report outlines the impact of the new plan, stating: "We can see that there has been a significant improvement in ambulance handover delays with further improvement expected as the areas become better staffed."

The report, from Michelle Brotherton, Non-Emergency Services Operations Delivery & Improvement Director at WMAS, confirms they will look to introduce the plan in Shropshire.

It states: "Following the implementation of the Ambulance Decision Area at UHB, WMAS have been approached by a number of Integrated Care Systems who have also requested that we support them on similar projects.

"Over the last couple of months we have had various conversations and requests, however we have only had confirmation from Shropshire and Worcester on Friday, October 15, that they would like to progress with the UHB model.

"We will now work with the trusts to set up the same model as we have across UHB."

Speaking at a meeting of the WMAS Trust Board yesterday, Ms Brotherton, explained that the initiative is having a real impact.

She said: "The Ambulance Decision Area at University Hospitals Birmingham has been a real success. Staff are working together well on hospital grounds and in some cases are taking patients straight to wards they need to be in.

"A lot of hard work has gone into this with training and sorting out governance issues and we want to see other hospitals in the West Midlands sign up to this in the next 12 months.

"We were really pushing for Shropshire to sign up for the ADA trials for 12 months, not six, as we believe the difference will be really noticed."