Royal Stoke patients will go to Burton

AMBULANCES DIVERTED IN BID TO CUT 'HANDOVER DELAYS'

- By PHIL CORRIGAN

AMBULANCES are being diverted to the Queen’s Hospital in Burton to help reduce handover delays at Stoke-on-Trent's main hospital.

The decision to send patients 30 miles across Staffordshire from Stoke-on-Trent is one of the measures being taken by the trust running the Royal Stoke.

Plans have been drawn up to cut lengthy A&E waiting times where the average ambulance handover delays 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 seen or discharged within four hours increased to 67.5 per cent, compared to the target of 78 per cent.