'Patients Will Die' If Crisis In Emergency Care Gets Worse

NHS trusts told ambulance response times must improve

- Rebecca Thomas

NHS trusts have been told that they must act immediately to improve ambulance response times after leaked data showed some stroke patients were waiting for four hours, while thousands more A&E patients have experienced "dangerous" wait times in emergency departments. Data seen by The Independent showed that some patients with potentially life-threatening conditions had waited for more than four hours for an ambulance against a target time of 40 minutes.

Ambulance services across the country have reported being under extreme pressure, with West Midlands Ambulance Service warning that at least 72 patients are likely to have died in the last year as a result of delays in response times. NHS figures also showed emergency departments suffering, with the past six weeks seeing an average of 1,173 patients each day waiting more than 12 hours in A&E from time of arrival to being given a bed. This is the equivalent of around 6 per cent of A&E attendances.