Coroner warns of ambulance delays all year round in England

A senior coroner has issued an official warning about the “significant disruption” being caused to ambulance services as vehicles wait for hours to take patients to hospital, stressing that the problem is now happening all year round and not just in the winter.

David Ridley, the senior coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, has written to the UK Health Secretary, Victoria Atkins, saying delays in England are being caused by a lack of community care packages for hospital patients well enough to be discharged.

Ridley made his “preventing future deaths’ at the end of an inquest of Richard Carpenter, 71, who waited 5 hours and 34 minutes for an ambulance even though he had just undergone major heart surgery and the target to reach him was 18 minutes.

Timmerman died during Covid, when ambulance services were under great pressure. During the inquest, Ridley heard from the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust that it was still “not uncommon” for around 30% of available ambulances in South West England to be held up at hospitals awaiting transfer.

Ridley wrote: “As I looked deeper into where the problems lay, the issue of patients in hospitals taking up beds arose again in circumstances where the patient was physically fit for discharge but they were unable to be discharged due to the lack of appropriate facilities. care packages in the community.

“This issue has been raised in other reports I have written to you recently and I am concerned about the lack of availability of sufficient available beds in the hospital due to bed blocking which continues to cause significant disruption to ambulance services operating trying to take patients to the hospital.

“I am concerned that delays in ambulances escorting patients in the community are likely to increase the risk of death in Category 2 cases (the category assigned to Carpenter), especially if this could otherwise be avoided if the patient got to hospital in a timely manner had been recorded.

“What is also worrying is that what was previously considered seasonal pressure on ambulance services during the winter months is now becoming a norm all year round.”

Ridley concluded: ‘I am sure the family would appreciate some indication as to the national strategy here to address this issue, apart from providing additional funding, which is usually the blanket answer.’

The coroner did not conclude that the delay caused Carpenter’s death, but his wife, Jeanette Carpenter, told the Guardian on Monday: “I feel he was abandoned in his hour of need.”

She believes that if he had been seen sooner, he might have been saved or at least had a less painful, terrifying death. She also said she was concerned that there were still so many ambulances at the hospital doors all year round.

“You don’t want to be sick in this country. I don’t believe any other developed country is in this position.” She said her husband had been a good man, a family man and a brilliant businessman.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We respond to and learn from every report into the prevention of future deaths, and we are taking action to ensure the health and care system works closely together to tackle delayed discharge , including investing an additional £1 billion this year to support the NHS and local authorities to ensure timely and effective hospital discharge.

“In addition, we have seen significant improvements in ambulance response times this year – with average Category 2 response times in 2023-2024 being over 13 minutes faster than the previous year.”