'Work to do' despite ambulance handover time cut

Ambulance handover delays at Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham reduced from 90 minutes to 38 in the space of a year.

In December, Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), which runs QMC, committed to 45-minute handovers to free up ambulance crews to better respond to more emergencies.

This initiative has helped cut handover times at QMC's emergency department by 52 minutes from January 2024 to January this year.

East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) chief executive Richard Henderson said "45 minutes should be a backstop and not a target", with the national target set at 15 minutes.

Mr Henderson said: "There is a real risk we could become focused on 45 minutes, and the constitutional time remains 15 minutes for a clinical handover, and we have got to really make sure we keep that momentum going."

National guidance still says patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance must be handed over to the care of staff within 15 minutes.

During an EMAS meeting on Tuesday, divisional director for Nottinghamshire Greg Cox said: "Last winter, activity was higher, but nevertheless that is a significant gain."

Mr Cox added: "There is still some work to do, but it is a significant improvement and a clear correlation between handover times, delays and our ability to respond to our patients."

The drop in handover delays has also led to better response times to calls in the community, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

At an NUH board meeting in January, Mark Simmonds, the trust's deputy medical director, said the pilot had negatively affected emergency department staff.

He said it had led to more incidences of "corridor care" – where patients end up waiting on beds in hospital corridors before admission.

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