HEALTH watchdogs want action to bring an end "unacceptable" delays in the handing over of patients from ambulance to accident and emergency staff at Gwent hospitals.

The average wait for ambulance crews during March, before they could transfer responsibility for patients to accident and emergency staff at Newport's Royal Gwent Hospital, was 31 minutes.

One crew had to wait more than four hours and several waits of more than two hours were recorded. Now Gwent Community Health Council (CHC) members are calling for more help for front line hospital staff and initiatives to reduce inappropriate arrivals at A and E departments.

They fear the issue results in more and longer trolley waits for patients, while diverting ambulances from rural areas such as Monmouthshire to cover for hospital-delayed crews and meet demands in more populated areas.

"Trolley waits involve misery for patients, but the implications for other branches of the service are not always recognised," said Liz Hacket Pain, acting chairwoman of the CHC's Monmouthshire area committee.

"Ambulance waits divert specialist crews and vehicles from the job they are trained to do. We clearly need more front line hospital staff and more imaginative initiatives to reduce the number of inappropriate arrivals at A and E." Crews attending 999 calls are obliged to take all patients to hospital regardless of the severity of injury or illness. Once at hospitals like the Royal Gwent, the patient remains the responsibility of the ambulance crew until an A & E trolley becomes available and transfer can take place. At times of high demand, this can delay crews.

CHC members are concerned that when several crews are delayed, there can be a knock-on effect on emergency ambulance response times, a particular fear in Monmouthshire where during March and April, fewer than half of the responses to category A calls were achieved within the target eight minutes.

A pilot scheme is being run in Swansea whereby patients are assessed by paramedic practitioners who use their professional judgement as to whether a patient needs to be taken to hospital, thus reducing some routine pressure.

Monmouthshire CHC members have asked for a full briefing on the experiment.