A&Es are refusing to take patients parked outside in ambulances

November 4, 2016

Some staff claim patients aren’t their ‘responsibility’ because they haven’t crossed the threshold of the building
Last year ambulances spent more than 407,000 hours queuing outside AE units
Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Health Committee, urged the Government to pump more money into social care
The report, by the Commons Health Select Committee, blames the crisis on the ‘perilous’ state of social care services

Sophie Borland Health Editor For The Daily Mail

Published:
21:56 EDT, 2 November 2016

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Updated:
22:45 EDT, 2 November 2016

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The AE crisis is so severe that hospitals are refusing to take in patients from ambulances parked outside, MPs warn.

Some staff claim patients aren’t their ‘responsibility’ because they haven’t crossed the threshold of the building.

Last year ambulances spent more than 407,000 hours queuing outside AE units.

A report by MPs also reveals how hospitals have resorted to sending their own carers to look after the elderly at home – to prevent them taking up NHS beds.

hospitals are refusing to take in patients from ambulances parked outside, a report by the Commons Health Select Committee has warned

It warns that long waits in casualty departments have become the ‘norm’ and this winter may be worse than ever.

The report, by the Commons Health Select Committee, blames the crisis on the ‘perilous’ state of social care services, which means the elderly aren’t being looked after at home.

They are becoming severely ill, malnourished or suffering falls and ending up in AE departments. Once recovered, they become ‘bedblockers’ in hospital as the lack of care for them at home means they cannot be discharged.

Earlier this week Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, chairman of the Health Committee, urged the Government to pump more money into social care.

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Sarah Wollaston and Dr Tajek Hassan have both voiced strong concerns about the findings in the new report

In an open letter, she accused ministers of ‘misleading’ the public by implying the NHS was ‘awash with cash’.

The MPs’ report on the scale of the AE crisis is based on evidence taken from NHS trusts, medical experts and leading doctors.

Managers at East of England Ambulance Trust revealed how some hospitals were so overcrowded that they were even refusing to take in patients languishing in ambulances parked outside.

The report states: ‘There are some trusts that will not acknowledge their responsibilities even when a patient is in an ambulance parked on the ramp of the emergency department.’

Some hospitals have hired carers to go to homes and look after elderly patients who have been discharged, to prevent them from becoming bedblockers.

Oxford University Trust recruited 60 care staff earlier this year, freeing up 75 of its hospital beds in a month.

The report highlights how the NHS has one of the lowest numbers of beds per population in Europe – and that numbers are declining even further.

Some trusts including University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay in Cumbria have had to remove beds because they do not have enough staff.

Managers from the trusts told MPs that patients were routinely ‘spilling’ out from AE on to surgical wards due to the severe lack of beds.

Others are cancelling all non-urgent surgeries for two weeks over Christmas just to ensure there are enough beds for patients coming in from AE.

Dr Wollaston, a former hospital doctor and GP, said: ‘Accident and Emergency departments in England are managing unprecedented levels of demand.

‘The pressures are now continuing year-round without the traditional respite over the summer months as departments try to cope with increasing numbers of patients with complex needs.’

Dr Tajek Hassan, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, which represents AE doctors, warned that overcrowding ‘can be fatal for patients’.

He added: ‘For some time we have warned about the effect that cuts to social care are having on emergency department performance and we have seen the situation worsen each year.

‘Whereas traditionally winter would be a busy period the system would always, to an extent, recover.

‘We are now failing to see recovery, with almost year-round pressure.’