Trolley waits surge, but ambulance handover times improve at Rotherham Hospital

The Advertiser previously reported a surge in ambulance waits of over an hour — known as “black breaches” — to a record standing at 358 in November last year, which saw the hospital staying on an operational level described as “black alert”.

In January, the one hour-plus handover figure was 145 — down two-thirds from December’s record-breaking total of 507.

The number taking between 30 minutes and an hour also dropped, from 250 to 157 in a month.

Hospital deputy chief executive Michael Wright said the managing trust was in “a far better place” in the new year, adding: “We can see some green shoots coming through at this time.”

The trust’s integrated performance report also found the time patients waited in the Urgent & Emergency Care Centre before treatment fell from 55 to 36 minutes from December to January.

But there was a darker picture on 12-hour trolley waits, which rose from zero in October and November to 41 in December and 44 in January.

Sally Kilgariff, chief operating officer at the trust, said December and early January had been challenging locally as well as nationally, with particular pressures in relation to seasonal flu, Strep-A, and an increase in Covid-19, alongside the usual increase in demand on health services through the winter period.

“To address the increased demand and in line with our winter plan, we opened additional bed capacity and implemented a number of schemes to support the increased demands on services over the winter period,” she said.

“We have also been working closely with our partners in social care to reduce delays for patients waiting to be discharged and with the ambulance service to ensure patients arriving by ambulance can be handed over quickly.

“Winter is always a challenging period for the NHS, but our colleagues continue to work hard to ensure we provide our patients with the care they need.”