Over 1,100 ambulances left waiting over an hour by Mayo A&E backlog

MORE than 1,100 ambulances waited more than an hour to dispatch their patients at Mayo University Hospital last year, reports CLAIRE MCNAMARA

The data, which was released by the National Ambulance Service under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals the length of time it took ambulances to hand over their patients at the hospital, receive their trolleys back and return to responding to emergency calls.

Out of 7,832 ambulance attendances at the Castlebar facility last year, 1,123 waited more than 60 minutes there before being ‘cleared’.

Almost 89 per cent of the time, it took more than 20 minutes, despite the HSE's recommended 20 minutes ambulance turnaround time target.

The National Ambulance Service collates ambulance turnaround times from the National Computer Aided Dispatch System, which electronically records the arrival time of the ambulance at the hospital and the time that the ambulance is ready and available to respond to another call. However, the recording of the clinical handover is a work in progress and is currently in the South area only.

Councillor Michael Kilcoyne, cathaoirleach, Castlebar Municipal District, said he finds it appalling that one in every seven ambulances that brought a patient to Mayo University Hospital last year had to wait more than an hour to hand over the patient before it could go on to the next call.

Only one in every nine ambulances were 'cleared' to leave the hospital within the 20 minutes recommended by the HSE.

He stated: "The hold-ups at the hospital mean that ambulances cannot respond to other emergency calls in a timely manner. While the HSE talk of the 'golden hour' in the case of certain medical emergencies - like heart attacks - it is clear that the people of Mayo are receiving a second class service, which I'm sure has resulted in loss of life.

"I call on our four Mayo TDs to demand that the people in Mayo receive the same service as people on the east coast of our country, and I intend on raising this matter at the next meeting of the HSE West Forum. Once again, we have been let down by our TDs."

Separately, there were eight ambulance breakdowns in the county last year. Five of these involved a puncture, while one was due to a road traffic accident and the remainder were injector issues or drive-shaft replacements. However, it is not clear if there were patients on board at the time of the breakdowns.

There were a total of 15 ambulances in Mayo last year – 12 emergency vehicles and three intermediate care ambulances, with no ambulance having over 300,000km on the clock.