Ambulance service reveals that Scarborough has longer patient handover times than York and Harrogate

A report by the Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) NHS Trust has revealed that “patient handover delays at emergency departments continue to be significantly above the national target of 15 minutes”.

At Scarborough Hospital the average handover time throughout April and May 2023 was 36.55 minutes and at York it was 32.11 minutes, whilst at Harrogate the average handover took just 12.51 minutes which is within the agreed target time.

According to NHS England, hospital handover delays are risky because they delay assessment and treatment for patients waiting in an ambulance queue at hospitals.

The report states that “pressures across the health and social care system” have contributed to the hospital handover delays, and that the Trust remains ”concerned about the significant impact this has on the availability of emergency ambulances and on patient care”.

The update, which has been prepared for an upcoming meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s Scrutiny of Health Committee, also notes “some positive improvements” in the time it has taken ambulances to respond to calls in A&E Operations for the most seriously ill “category 1 and 2” patients.

A national target has been set for 2023/24 for all English ambulance services to achieve a category 2 response time of under 30 minutes and YAS says it has met the target in April and May.

In 2022/23, the YAS emergency operations centre received more than 1,2m emergency calls, an average of 3,300 calls a day.

The board of the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust heard in May that ambulance handover waiting times have “generally shown deteriorating performance over the last year”.

The report for the board meeting noted that whilst its target had not been reached since August 2021, there has been “significant improvement since January” this year.

The hospital Trust’s report states that at York Hospital, building work has also reduced the emergency department’s capacity impacting “the ability to take handover of new patients from the ambulance service causing safety risks across the system”.

A spokesperson for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We work in partnership with Yorkshire Ambulance Service, and we continue to work together to understand how we can safely speed up the handover of patients.

“As part of this close working arrangement, in March we began a joint improvement project which involved a full review of our working practices, and refining and establishing new processes where appropriate.

“We are already beginning to see noticeable improvements and our average handover times are improving.”

In October last year, the planning authority approved the development of a “new, modern, environmentally friendly” ambulance hub on Woodlands Drive, Scarborough.

North Yorkshire Council’s Scrutiny of Health Committee will meet on Friday, June 16 to discuss the ambulance service’s report.