Heart attack and stroke patients are facing waits of up to two hours for urgent care – a clear sign that a new NHS winter crisis has begun.
Emergency social care workers have warned care homes to expect delays of up to 18 hours for residents in acute pain as 999 doctors prioritize those most at risk.
An email from Appello, the UK’s largest provider of telemedicine monitoring, said “customer expectations need to be taken into account” as “pressure on NHS emergency services continues to increase”.
Appello said recent examples include the South Western Ambulance Service (SWAS) recommending a two-hour waiting time for Category 2 calls for serious life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks and strokes; The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) is warning of a 10-hour delay for Category 3 calls (urgent problems requiring treatment to relieve suffering that are not immediately life-threatening), with waiting times for Category 3 calls of up to 18 hours. in Essex.
Email viewed by user Iit states: “Emergency services are obviously overburdened and delays in providing available services have three important consequences for us: firstly, the operator is occupied longer, secondly, we have to make more calls to register before the emergency services arrive, and thirdly, we have had an increase in repeat calls checking to see when their ambulance will arrive….
“We would like to ask you to inform all staff on site that there will be longer wait times for emergency and emergency numbers. Therefore, customer expectations must be taken into account when necessary and urgent cases must be increased immediately.”

An EAD spokesman said it was “working closely” with NHS colleagues to reduce delays in hospital transfers and had already increased the number of GPs on the streets and in its command centers and would “continue to increase this number in the near future”. . I would like to increase it. a few months”.
SWAS pointed to the latest NHS England ambulance service data published last week (Thursday 14 December) which showed the average response time to category 2 calls was 44 minutes and 23 seconds.
EAD took an average of 46 minutes and 6 seconds to respond to category 2 calls. With the exception of the Isle of Wight, South East Coast Ambulance Service was the fastest service in England, responding to such calls within 30 minutes and 15 seconds.
Finish time: 18 minutes.
Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “The past year has been a turning point for emergency care. And it’s already starting to be an extremely difficult winter. We know that delays in seeking care are dangerous, whether it’s waiting for an ambulance, waiting for a transfer, waiting for treatment or waiting for hospitalization.
However, despite the difficulties, we want to emphasize that if anyone needs emergency help in the coming days, weeks and months, they will still need it, it should be taken advantage of.
“Everyone who works in emergency medicine continues to do everything they can to provide the best possible care in an overburdened and increasingly crisis-ridden system.”

Dr Tim Cooksley, former president of the Society of Emergency Medicine, said the high number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in the emergency department reflected a lack of access to hospitals.
“This is the crux of the problem. Elderly and vulnerable patients are particularly affected by these delays and this issue was somewhat overlooked in Thursday’s results report, given the slight reduction in waiting lists,” he said.
“This is despite an increase of 5,000 people since November last year as the NHS entered its worst period of winter. The seriousness of this situation cannot be underestimated. Without an uninterrupted system, emergency departments will continue to experience numerous long waits and resulting delays in ambulance transport, meaning emergency workers will not be able to get back on the road quickly.
“As we have said many times, there will be no sustainable post-election recovery for the NHS without rebuilding the emergency department to deliver more efficiently, and as the evidence continues to show, the crisis is only getting worse.”
The Prime Minister said the Government would be “closely monitoring” ambulance delays after latest figures showed transport times had risen sharply, with almost 13,000 crews waiting more than an hour to offload patients.
Around one in three patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited more than 30 minutes before being transferred to an emergency department.
NHS England data shows there were 28,498 delays of half an hour or more across all hospitals in the week ending December 10.
This represented 34 per cent of the 84,268 ambulance arrivals for which transport times were known, up from 25 per cent in the week ending 26 November.
Alex Nash, head of assistive technology at healthcare company Access HSC, said: “As demand increases and winter pressures place greater pressure on emergency services, it is important that healthcare providers can operate at optimal productivity and efficiency.”
“Ambush transmission delays and emergency department wait times are often in the news, but technology has the ability to streamline services and reduce the impact of false calls so care can be prioritized for those who need help.”
“Whether it’s providing proactive support to a vulnerable person in their own home using trend analysis, or providing devices that allow someone to speak directly to a person to check on their well-being, innovative technology can ensure our emergency services can focus on providing support to these people. those most in need.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Reducing waiting lists is one of the government’s top five priorities and, despite ongoing pressure on the NHS, we have reduced the overall waiting list and the number of individual patients waiting for treatment since last month. , decreased. .
“We have prepared for winter earlier than ever before and are making good progress with record funding to get 800 new ambulances on the road and create a further 5,000 permanent hospital beds on top of the 10,000 hospital beds already provided , which frees up hospital capacity and reduces waiting times.”
Source: I News

I’m Raymond Molina, a professional writer and journalist with over 5 years of experience in the media industry. I currently work for 24 News Reporters, where I write for the health section of their news website. In my role, I am responsible for researching and writing stories on current health trends and issues. My articles are often seen as thought-provoking pieces that provide valuable insight into the state of society’s wellbeing.