South East ambulances 'waiting up to 10 hours outside hospitals'

Ambulances have been waiting outside hospitals in the south east of England for up to 10 hours due to the "extreme pressure" of Covid-19, paramedics say.

Pip Griffin, of South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb), said crews were "regularly" waiting more than eight hours to handover patients.

Ms Griffin, a representative for the Unison union, said: "The whole system is under pressure."

The ambulance trust says it is increasing the number of staff.

Secamb covers areas of the country which are among the worst hit by the pandemic, including Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

Authorities in Sussex and Surrey have rolled out "major incident" plans, as fears increase that Covid-19 cases could overwhelm local health services.

Ms Griffin said: "I'm frequently hearing from my colleagues that waiting times of eight to 10 hours when we're at peak demand is happening regularly at various sites across our trust.

"The ambulance service is struggling to get to the next call because we're held up there, and that's not the fault of the acute hospitals, that's because the whole system is under extreme pressure at the moment."

The stresses of treating sick patients while wearing PPE all day had left paramedics "emotionally and physically exhausted," she said.

Joe Garcia, Secamb's director of operations, said he was "so proud" of way crews were coping with the additional pressure of the long waits outside hospitals.

"Our staff are trained to deal with immediate emergencies, life threatening emergencies, they're not trained to nurse for hours on end, and ambulances aren't designed for a nursing environment, as well as the additional nursing pressure of being in a confined space with a potentially Covid-positive patient," he said.

He said the health service should "work closely together to ensure we are maximising every available opportunity to do the right thing for our patients".

A Secamb NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: "Hospitals in the area are extremely busy but we are doing everything we can to increase the number of staff available to meet the additional demand.

"This includes increasing overtime to ensure crews are available to respond to patients in the community."

The NHS has been approached for comment.

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].