Sarah Gibson MP Calls for Urgent Action as Ambulance Delays in the South West Persist

Sarah Gibson, Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, has called for immediate and sustained government action to address worsening ambulance response and handover times in the South West.

Following a series of Parliamentary Questions to Government Ministers earlier this month, new data has revealed continued pressures on the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT), with ambulance response and hospital handover times remaining dangerously high throughout 2024 and into 2025.

Shocking Delays and Missed Targets

The Government has confirmed that:

• The average response time for Category 2 calls – which include suspected heart attacks and strokes – exceeded the national 18-minute target every month between April 2024 and March 2025, peaking at over one hour in December 2024.
• Category 3 calls – for urgent issues like abdominal pain, often treated at home – should be answered within two hours in 90% of cases. Category 4 calls – for less urgent concerns such as diarrhoea or back pain – have a three-hour target.
• Category 3 and 4 calls regularly saw patients waiting over three to four hours, with the longest average in December reaching four hours for Category 3 incidents.

Despite the seriousness of these delays, the Government admitted that no official statistics are collected on the longest individual ambulance wait times, raising concerns about transparency and oversight.

Hospital Handovers Under Pressure

In addition to response times, new figures show significant delays in handing patients over to hospitals:

• In December 2024, over 52% of ambulance handovers took more than 30 minutes, and nearly one in three exceeded one hour.
• January 2025 saw more than 19,000 delayed handovers, with over 11,800 lasting beyond 60 minutes.

These delays come despite consistent call volumes and a relatively stable paramedic workforce, suggesting the problem lies in delays in hospital discharges, hospital capacity, and NHS bosses.

Sarah Gibson MP said:

“These figures paint a stark picture of the Government’s failure to get a grip on the crisis in our emergency services. When people are waiting over an hour for an ambulance after a suspected heart attack, or when handovers at A&E are routinely delayed by hours, lives are being put at risk.”