AMBULANCE crews have spent more than 2,000 hours a month outside the Grange University Hospital, on average, since it opened two years ago.

A Senedd member from Gwent has slammed the "unacceptable" pressures facing front-line healthcare in the region, and has pointed the finger of blame squarely at the Welsh Government, which runs the NHS in Wales.

As the Argus has reported previously, a series of "patient flow" bottlenecks in health and social care have contributed to a chain reaction of delays in hospitals, with long waits for discharges leading to a lack of beds for those who arrive at the front door.

At its worst, the problem causes queues of ambulances outside hospitals, with paramedics limited to a caring role for patients until there is room for them inside.

Jason Killens, the chief executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, said this was a nationwide issue, and explained how patient flow problems affected his crews.

“Delays in hospitals unfortunately results in delays at the doors of emergency departments, which has a significant impact on our handover targets and inhibits our ability to respond to emergencies in the community.

Since the hospital started admitted patients in November 2020, ambulances have spent more than 2,000 hours waiting outside every month, except for three, Welsh Ambulance Service figures show.

In one month alone, ambulance crews lost 3,155 hours because they had to wait outside the Grange.

“I feel for the patients, the ambulance crews and indeed the hospital staff who are receiving patients who are often fed up and frustrated after being made to wait in ambulances for inordinate amounts of time," said Plaid Cymru MS Peredur Owen Griffiths, who has called on the government to act urgently and improve the situation.

“These delays for patients and ambulance crews are unacceptable” he added.

“The ambulance service is stretched by the inability of hospitals like the Grange to admit patients in a timely fashion.

“With ambulances routinely lined up outside the Grange, this inevitably causes lengthy delays in response times for people who need ambulances in emergencies."

Mr Owen Griffiths said "system failures" were to blame, and "need to be remedied - and fast" ahead of a winter when cost-of-living pressures could have a major effect on people's health.

“I am calling on the Labour health minister to order an urgent review into this huge waste of resources throughout the health service in Wales," he added.

“She needs to get a grip on the situation and identify solutions so our cherished health service is better prepared for the onslaught that is heading its way this winter.”

The Welsh Government acknowledged the ambulance service and healthcare was "experiencing unprecedented pressures" and said its delivery plan, along with £1 billion in funding, would increase ambulance capacity, improve response times and patient handover times.

“We are driving a ‘whole system’ health and social care approach to support improvement backed by £25m of recurrent funding to support the transformation of urgent and emergency care services to deliver the right care in the right place, first time," a spokesperson for the government said.

"This includes a focus on improving the flow of patients through the hospital system to help them return home when they’re ready to do so.”

Mr Killens said health agencies were working together to ease the system-wide pressures on patient flow.

“We lost 2,664 hours at the doors of the Grange in September, but this only equates to 10.6 per cent of all lost hours pan-Wales outside EDs for the same period," he said.

“The issues and consequences of extended patient handover on our patients, the community, and our staff, is deep rooted and well-documented, and we continue to work closely with local health boards and the Welsh Government to ease the system-wide pressures.

“Additional funding has recently been granted by the Welsh Government to support the transformation of urgent and emergency care. The public can also help ease the pressure on our service by only calling 999 in life-threatening or urgent emergencies and using the most appropriate pathway to care versus the easiest.”

A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: “The Health Board continues to face significant challenges across its urgent and emergency care system, which is also the case across Wales and the UK.

"We recognise that patients are waiting in ambulances outside The Grange University Hospital far longer than we would want or would expect and this continues to be a priority issue for us.

"However, there have been some improvements made over the last 12 months, with the Health Board having one of the lowest average ambulance handover times in Wales and we are working hard to reduce waiting times even further.

“Sadly, excessive waiting times are a reflection of the pressures across the health and social care system in Wales, from our pharmacies, GP Surgeries and the teams working in our communities, right through to our hospital wards, Emergency Department and Minor Injury Units, and our colleagues in Social Care.

These pressures then culminate in Emergency Department backlogs and ambulance transfer delays.

“We are working very closely with our colleagues in social care to support the high volumes of patients who are currently fit for discharge from our hospitals but require additional support at home to allow them to leave our hospitals.

“We continue to work with our colleagues in the Welsh Ambulance Service to ensure the timely transfer of patients into our care, and to release ambulance crews as efficiently as possible to enable them to respond to emergency calls in our communities."