New plans have been drawn up to cut lengthy A&E waiting times.

Average ambulance handover delays at the Royal Stoke hit two-and-a-half hours during the worst week in winter, as services struggled to cope with demand.

While the situation has since improved, the average of one hour 40 minutes for the week starting April 14 was still above the 45 minute target.

In that week, the proportion of A&E patients were seen or discharged within four hours increased to 67.5 per cent, compared to the target of 78 per cent.

Bosses at University Hospitals of North Midlands have now put in place an improvement plan involving changes to staffing and process across urgent and emergency care.

The trust is also undertaking a raft of 'tactical mitigating actions' including engagement with GPs, the recruitment of a hospital ambulance liaison officer, and diverting some ambulances to Queens Hospital in Birmingham.

A report to the UHNM board, setting out the plans, acknowledged that the current performance 'is not the performance we want for our patients or population'.

It says that UHNM will work with partners to deliver improvements in the hospital, and in the community to 'support our patient being treated closer to home wherever possible'.

Chief operating officer Katy Thorpe told a UHNM board meeting said: "We've worked through winter, we're seeing some improvements out of winter.

We've got our improvement programme in place now, as have our community colleagues, and we have our modelled trajectories based on those programmes."

Trust chair David Wakefield asked how the board would be able to judge whether the plans had worked.

He said: "How are the non-executive directors going to get assurance that all of these things are deliverable? What we have here is your plan, which is absolutely fine. But not to be too blunt, in my time here we've had lots of action plans to improve urgent and emergency care – what's different about this one."

Ms Thorpe said the programme's success, or otherwise, would be judged one its ability to improve three key metrics – ambulance handover delays, four hour waits, and the proportion of patients spending 12 hours in the emergency department.

She said: "Our key focus has to be improving access for our patients and improving flow through out hospital."

During the public questions section of the board meeting, local health campaigner Ian Syme raised concerns over the ambulance handover delays, and asked whether the mitigating actions would lead to improvements while the longer-term changes are being implemented. He said that in 2024/25, there were more than 63,000 'lost hours' due to the ambulance delays at the Royal Stoke.

Mr Syme said: "I know this is a problem throughout England. UHNM has recognised that urgent and emergency care performance requires substantial improvement, and much is within UHNM's remit.

"If ambulances are waiting here, they're not available to the community and they can't do their job. It isn't a good experience for anybody – the UHNM workforce, the ambulance workforce or the patient."

Mr Wakefield said the board would monitor performance on the three key metrics identified in the report on a regular basis.

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