Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the Welsh Government to reverse hospital bed cuts to help deal with ambulance queues outside hospitals and consequently delayed responses to distress calls.
Raising the matter with the First Minister Carwyn Jones AM in the Assembly Chamber yesterday, Mr Isherwood said the 30% cut in hospital beds over the last 20 years has resulted in patients often having to wait hours in the ambulance outside the hospital because there are no beds available.
Calling for Welsh Government action to address the issue, Mr Isherwood said:
“Six years ago, in February 2012, it was reported that a patient had to wait in an ambulance for more than seven hours outside of Ysbyty Gwynedd because of a hospital bed shortage. Last December, Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board released figures showing that 1,010 patients had faced handovers of more than an hour outside their hospitals in October.
“Last month, with ambulances queuing outside Ysbyty Gwynedd's Accident and Emergency Department, we saw coverage of a pensioner waiting 13 hours for an ambulance after her hip gave way. We know that December figures show that 17,400 patients (in Wales) waited more than the four-hour target time in A&E, with the highest portion—27 per cent—in Betsi Cadwaladr, and 1,460 waiting longer than 12 hours.
“When will your Government acknowledge that a 30 per cent cut in beds to 10,935 over the last two decades has rendered paramedics unable to off load patients quickly so ambulances are delayed in responding to their next distress calls, and will you reverse those bed cuts not only in the District General Hospitals, but also in our communities, as called for increasingly by our General Practitioners?”
In his response, Carwyn Jones stated that he expected “Health Boards to have plans in place to ensure as smooth a transition, and as swift a transition, as possible between ambulance and hospital”, but he made no reference to hospital beds.