HOSPITAL bosses are proposing a redistribution of emergency ambulance attendances between the A&E departments at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall, to even out the workload.

The suggestion comes in the aftermath of well-documented problems with ambulances getting stuck at the Royal Gwent where more than 16,000 crew hours were lost in the 22 months to last October, due to delays with handing over patients.

The first measure could see Nevill Hall taking more ambulance cases.

An A&E consultant advisory service is also being made available to the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust, so crews have access to senior clinical support 'on scene' - in reality by telephone - to try to provide an alternative where appropriate, to bringing patients into hospital.

The measures are being considered and tried out as part of an ongoing effort to ease pressure on busy A&E departments and ambulance services, which have been stretched almost as never before by the demands of severe winter weather and flu cases.

Aneurin Bevan Health Board is working with the ambulance trust in the light of new figures that indicate that 45 per cent of 'blue light' or emergency ambulance calls do not result in a hospital admission once the patient has been taken there, and assessed and treated, while eight out of 10 ambulance patients who are discharged do not require a follow-up appointment in hospital or through their GP.

A&E and ambulance struggles through the winter have been well documented and a health board report lays bare the difficulties staff have had in trying to cope with the upsurge of cases.

In the period from the last week of November to the first week of January, there was a year-on-year increase in medical admissions to the Royal Gwent alone, of 13 per cent, or around 200 patients.

This surge reached its peak in the last week of December, when the year-on-year increase was, states the board, an "extraordinary" 23 per cent.