‘12-hour ambulance waits just the tip of the iceberg’, says Bath MP

21 June 2022

Bath MP Wera Hobhouse has raised concerns over the way that ambulance waiting times are reported, citing that the current system underestimates the wait for an ambulance.

In the past the Liberal Democrats have called for an urgent investigation into England’s ambulance services and a review of ambulance station closures more generally.

In Bath there have been several cases of patients waiting hours for an ambulance with one gentleman forced to sleep on the floor of a church whilst waiting for an ambulance which took 12 hours to arrive. At the end of last year, a 91-year-old had to wait seven hours for help after a fall at home.

Monthly figures show that the NHS continues to face unrelenting pressures. Whilst the pandemic has contributed to the current situation, the number of patients enduring long waiting times have been increasing for the past five years.

Earlier this week, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine published a report which found that in 2021 on average over a thousand patients waited in A&Es for 12 hours or more from their time of arrival every single day.

Wera Hobhouse MP commented:

“Ambulance waiting times are soaring. The Conservatives are burying their heads in the sand, trying to wish the problem away. Waiting times for ambulances are spiraling out of control.

“It is disastrous that our local NHS services are under such severe pressure. We need real investment in our area with a robust plan from the Conservatives to correct the situation immediately. The Conservatives have taken people for granted for too long and we are saying local people pay the price.

“We need urgent action otherwise the Conservatives will have blood on their hands. There is no doubt that sky-high waiting times are impacting the health of the British public. Paramedics and the whole health service are working extremely hard under huge pressure with overstretched resources yet the Conservatives are not doing anything to act.

“We must have a debate on the long waiting times for urgent and emergency care services.”