Health bosses are taking a zero tolerance approach to lengthy ambulance handover delays at hospitals in Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford.

Last winter nearly half of the ambulances arriving at Staffordshire's main hospital trust in the week leading up to Christmas were delayed by more than an hour.

The target is for 95% of ambulance handovers to be completed within an hour. But figures presented to a University Hospitals of North Midlands (UHNM) NHS board meeting revealed that the percentage had fallen in recent months from 85.8% in September – and in November was of a similar level to December 2022.

The report said: "Ambulance handovers of fewer than 60 minutes again significantly deteriorated to 67% in November, from 77% in October. These levels are aligned to levels seen during (quarter 3) in 2022/23.

The target is for 95% of ambulance handovers to be completed within an hour (SWNS).

"Overall bed occupancy at trust level shows an increase in both October and November, however more significantly the Royal Stoke site specifically has seen a sustained high level of occupancy at times above 92%. This in turn has created sustained bottlenecks felt across the whole emergency pathway and particularly so in both the Emergency Department and in the ability for ambulances to handover patients within the 15 minute window desired."

The trust's chief executive, Tracy Bullock, said in her monthly report to the board that last month a letter had been sent to Integrated Care Boards, which oversee health services in their areas, "asking them to co-ordinate a response to NHSE Midlands that provided assurance and a commitment to reduce the number of patients experiencing long waits in ambulances whilst waiting to be transferred into Emergency Departments".

She added: "The letter referred to the handover of patients to emergency departments from ambulances and the correlation with Category 2 response delays, stressing that a whole system approach to risk across the urgent and emergency care pathway was necessary to ensure the best possible outcomes for our patients.

"Guidance has been received in respect of long handover waits and at UHNM we are committed to a zero tolerance approach to very long waiters, with internal and external escalation processes ensuring every effort being made to resolve such delays. The board are asked to support and recognise that the executive are prioritising long ambulance waits through the escalation procedures developed."

COO, Simon Evans, said the trust has been able to minimise 'extremely long delays' (SWNS).

Chief operating officer Simon Evans told board members: "We have done a lot of work with West Midlands Ambulance Service to bring in a number of escalation measures. Every ambulance delayed more than 60 minutes is escalated to an executive and that happens 24 hours a day.

"In addition to that, when ambulances wait beyond that, there is a next series of escalated approaches, until you get to chief executives in order to alleviate the position. That has been running from the end of December right into January.

"We have managed to maintain a position where we haven't breached handover delays. We still have had ambulance delays but we have been able to minimise these extremely long delays."

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