Exclusive: Barclay summons six hospital chiefs over ambulance delays

Mr Barclay held a meeting this evening with the chief executives of Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust, Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Plymouth Trust, UH Leicester Trust, UH Birmingham FT and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust “to understand how we can tackle ambulance handover times”.

He told them ambulance handover delays were his biggest priority and asked them about the cause of the problems.

The list of six trusts which were called in was drawn up by NHSE previously, for work it had underway on handovers delays, based on the largest numbers of hours lost to delays, and the impact that reducing them would have on the ambulance service in their areas, HSJ was told.

Some of the trusts have been performing poorly on the measure for a number of years, whereas others have deteriorated more recently.

Since being given the role in early July, Mr Barclay has been stressing “accountability” for delivery in meetings with senior officials, and asking for more performance data.

A well-placed source said Mr Barclay’s opening message to the meeting today was: ”I want to work with you to understand how we can tackle ambulance handover times: this is my number one priority. The current level of handover delays is unacceptable.

“I know there are factors outside your control. I want to work with you to understand what’s in your control and what’s reliant on others, so we can be clear about the actions you can take and the actions others need to take, and ensure there’s accountability for everything which can make a difference.”

The meeting comes as increasing numbers of patients are suffering long ambulance handover delays at many hospitals – some for as long as 24 hours. The knock-on effect is very long ambulance response delays.

Almost 333,000 hours were lost by ambulance crews because of handover delays in the 12 months to July 2022 – 18 times higher than the 17,600 hours lost during the same period in 2019 to 2020, according to figures gathered by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives.

An NHS England spokesperson said: ”NHS England has been working with the six trusts for over a month and is ensuring that they are getting intensive support from national and regional teams, including mutual aid from neighbouring trusts to improve ambulance handovers.”

The main cause of handover delays is often cited as discharge delays, with many local NHS leaders arguing that investment in social care services and packages is needed. Others point out that many delays are due to internal NHS factors, however, such as waiting for medical review or medicines.

Three of the six trusts called in by Mr Barclay are in the South West region, where emergency care performance plummeted last winter, and which is now also under summer holiday pressure. The other three are in the Midlands. 

Four of them – Plymouth, Leicester, Birmingham and Worcestershire – are also on NHSE’s lists of most-troubled trusts for elective and cancer backlog recovery.

A new prime minister is due to be chosen by the Conservative party by 5 September, so it is unclear if Mr Barclay will last longer than two months in total in the post.

Updated 24 August 10am to clarify how the six were chosen, and at 12.07pm to include a comment from NHSE.