The staggering scale of a crisis facing a major Welsh hospital has been laid bare with confirmation of just how many hours patients have been forced to wait outside in ambulances before being taken inside for treatment. The sight of a long queue of emergency ambulances parked outside the accident and emergency (A&E) department at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen has unfortunately become one that is all too common in recent times.
Last week, one member of the public whose relative was being treated in an ambulance, said there was a large queue of emergency vehicles parked up outside the hospital with patients onboard waiting to be admitted. This issue obviously has a knock-on effect when it comes to how soon ambulances can be made available in the area as there have also been complaints about the estimated length of time it will take ambulances to reach patients, with one being told recently of a potential seven-hour wait, despite living near the hospital.
The Welsh Ambulance Service has admitted there are times when it simply can’t respond to 999 calls quickly enough due to a lack of available ambulances and crew, and has referred to the current situation as "untenable" . You can keep up to date with the latest Carmarthenshire news by signing up to the local newsletter here.
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In an alarming statistic released by the Welsh Ambulance Service, the full scale of the problem facing Glangwili Hospital can be revealed. In the seven days between Christmas and New Year, a total of 364 hours were spent by ambulance crews waiting to actually take patients into the hospital. The huge figure is more than twice the total number of hours there are in one week, but is based on the hours lost by each ambulance waiting to handover a patient. So across the seven-day period, all ambulances that took patients to Glangwili Hospital had to wait outside for a combined total of 52 hours per day - something that is said to be a “serious and long-standing issue”.
Hywel Dda University Health Board has been asked to comment on the situation, but had not responded at the time of publication. Jeff Morris, the Welsh Ambulance Service’s head of service for the Hywel Dda University Health Board area, which covers Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, said: ”Like our partners across health and social care, we remain extremely busy. Lots of people across Wales are trying to access health services currently.
"Like us, hospital colleagues are working at full capacity at a time when flow across the system is severely constrained. This often leads to our vehicles being held up at hospitals as we wait for the patients we have brought in to be admitted to emergency units. We’re working both as an organisation and a wider system to actively explore solutions, as the current situation is untenable for patients and for staff across health and social care.
“For us as an ambulance service, we’re thinking very differently about the way we deliver services in future, and we are already testing some new ways of working across Wales to understand how we can relieve some of the pressure in the system while continuing to provide patients with the care they need.
"While these plans are evolving at pace, we continue to ask the public to help us by calling 999 or attending emergency departments only if their needs require the level of care that only a highly skilled ambulance crew or emergency department can provide. For everything else, there are a number of alternatives, including NHS 111 Wales online and by phone, your local pharmacy, Minor Injuries Unit or GP.” Support award-winning journalism with WalesOnline’s Premium app on Apple or Android
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