The ambulance service is experiencing significant delays and other issues, and the staff members warn that they are under “severe pressure.”
As the wait times reached breaking point, one team was kept outside A&E for 26 hours.
During the June problems, another on the same day experienced an eight-hour delay.
One paramedic cautioned that several staff members were “psychologically struggling” and that they were “not coping.”
Kevin Fairfax, the secretary of the Unison chapter and a member of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said the delays were bad.
We haven’t even reached pressures comparable to those of winter, he continued. My members aren’t coping; instead, they’re going through mental difficulties.
‘We’ve had elderly patients sitting on the floor for hours, unable to get up due to a fractured hip or thigh. They’re sitting in their own urine.
‘It’s degrading for them and when the crews do turn up they are in tears.
‘We had a young lad who broke his leg playing football then sat on a field for hours waiting for us.
‘We join the NHS for the patients, not the money, and we are there to help but you can do nothing about waiting times. Seeing patients deteriorate is awful. It must be costing lives,’ he told the Mirror.
A poll carried out by the newspaper showed last month a West Midlands crew was held for 26 hours in boiling heat on June 6.
Meanwhile in London on the same day a crew had an eight-hour, 23-minute wait.
Up in the North West one ambulance had a 9hrs, 16mins handover at one point.
And in Yorkshire on June 7 at Hull Royal Infirmary, a crew had to stay for 9hrs, 36mins.
One employee called it the “worst June ever.”
Until they had formally turned over their charges to clinical professionals, he said that crews were spending hours in the backs of ambulances or next to their patients in hospitals.
It’s a vicious cycle because the ambulance crew can’t discharge into A&E because it is crowded with patients, according to unison officer Ray Gray.
And A&E is full, there are no beds in the hospital because the wards are full, and they are unable to discharge patients into the community because there are no support services.
Due to strains on the healthcare system as a whole, the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust reported that handover times were prolonged.
“We are continuing to work closely with hospitals and NHS partners throughout London to help alleviate delays and pressures wherever possible,” the London Ambulance Service stated.
The Welsh Ambulance Service and the West Midlands Ambulance Service both stated that they were making every effort to minimize delays.
According to the Department of Health, “Response times are determined by a variety of circumstances.” We’re adopting a systemic approach as a result, and the NHS has set aside £150 million in system funds to deal with strain.
‘We have provided £50m of additional funding in 2022/23 to support increased NHS 111 call-taking capacity, and we are busting the Covid backlogs by setting up surgical hubs and community diagnostic centers.’