Lister Hospital: Ambulances wait outside for up to five hours

Ambulances have had to wait up to five hours to hand over patients at a hospital's emergency department.

The waiting times at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage were revealed at a meeting of the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.

The meeting also heard there could be as many as 10 ambulances waiting to hand over patients at the same time.

The trust's chief executive Nick Carver said the team took the issue "extremely seriously".

"We know that if we have any delays here, it delays the time that an ambulance takes to get to a patient at home," he said.

"We think we do better than many other places. But we do - again, for the avoidance of doubt - recognise there's more we can do individually and as a system to reduce the delays still further."

According to national policy, ambulance handovers should take no more than 15 minutes, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

In September, 7% of handovers were completed within the target.

Average handover times ranged between 24 and 78 minutes and maximum times were between 54 and 321 minutes, the meeting heard.

In a letter sent to the trust, senior national and regional officials from the NHS acknowledged that staff were "working incredibly hard to resolve this problem" but said action must be taken to ensure ambulances were not used as additional emergency department cubicles.

The meeting heard the trust was exploring "additional temporary capacity", such as a portable building, in the car park.

It was also looking at whether it could create an admissions unit in the discharge lounge and increase capacity by discharging patients earlier.

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