Cornwall Hospital handover delays among worst in England

According to NHS data, patients arriving at Royal Cornwall Hospital via ambulance experienced the third-longest waiting times in the country.

The handover process for patients arriving at the hospital by ambulance should take around 15 minutes. However, statistics have shown that 66 per cent of patients at Royal Cornwall Hospital waited 30 minutes or longer.

A spokesperson for the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust told the Packet: "Challenges around patient flow and high numbers of delayed discharges, mean our main emergency department continues to be under significant pressure, receiving a high volume of ambulance arrivals, and caring for those who are most acutely unwell and more likely to need admission.

"As a health and care system, we are working hard to avoid delays and to ensure people can access the right service when they need it.

"Our focus this winter is on providing more primary and community-based care, virtual ward capacity and voluntary sector support, to avoid inappropriate emergency department attendances and hospital admissions."

Just across the border, at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, statistics have shown that patients arriving by ambulance have faced the longest handover delays in England for the third week in a row. According to the data, nearly 80 per cent of patients at hospitals in Plymouth waited longer than 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E staff between December 25 and 31.

On Friday, the hospital declared a major incident, with NHS bosses saying it was “full” following a six-day walkout by junior doctors continues.

Torbay and South Devon NHS Trust had the fourth worst ambulance handover delays in England with 57 per cent of patients waiting more than 30 minutes.

Earlier this year, Cherilyn Mackory, MP for Truro and Falmouth called upon her Government to do all it can to tackle ambulance waiting times at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. At the time, Cherilyn said: “This issue of ambulance waiting times at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals is vital to my constituents in Truro and Falmouth and the whole of Cornwall.

“There is widespread consensus that ambulance response times are slow in Corneall due to handover delays, which result in proper response times as ambulances queue outside A&E unable to attend to patients waiting in the community.

“These delays are not to do with ambulance service call handlers; they are a whole-system issue and are impacted by acute challenges elsewhere in the system, particularly with hospital capacity and patient flow. The issues include delayed discharges to social care and other services, as well as bed occupancy. As such, a whole-system approach is needed to tackle this issue.

“The Government must look urgently at tackling the staffing shortages preventing us from moving patients out of hospital beds and into domiciliary care….and recognise the challenging of rurality, an ageing population and higher demand for services.”

The Packet has contacted South Western Ambulance Service for a statement.