Patients stuck in ambulances for so loing they're ordering pizza!

Patients are having to wait so long stuck in ambulances outside an A&E ward that they need to order takeaway pizzas.

Those forced into long waits for treatment at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary have turned to delivery restaurants.

A former NHS Grampian health worker told the Mail of one case where a patient was taken to hospital by paramedics at 6pm and still hadn’t been admitted by 1.30am so ordered pizza from a nearby late-night takeaway.

He said the ambulance crew told him it was ‘not unusual’ for patients to become so hungry while facing long waits that they have to order food supplies.

Official figures show the median ‘turn­around time’ – the time taken for patients to be admitted to A&E after arriving in an ambulance – was 49 minutes in the week starting April 8, but 10 per cent of the 620 crews waited more than 2 hours 55 minutes. In the week starting March 18, 10 per cent of the 643 ambulances arriving at A&E waited more than 3 hours 33 minutes.

A former NHS Grampian employee, who did not want to be named, highlighted the case of a patient who called 999 with an acute clinical condition in late afternoon, with his ambulance arriving at the ARI at 6pm.

In the week starting March 18, 10 per cent of the 643 ambulances arriving at A&E waited more than 3 hours 33 minutes.

A patient was taken to hospital by paramedics at 6pm and still hadn’t been admitted by 1.30am so ordered pizza from a nearby late-night takeaway.

He said: ‘He got to A&E and the ambulance crew was told he was the 17th person waiting to be seen in A&E. He sat in the ambulance from 6pm and at 7am he still hadn’t been seen.

‘At around 1.30am, the patient needed something to eat. A local pizza house was open until 3am and they deliver to ambulances, so he placed an order.

‘This was not an unusual situation – I have other examples of patients waiting seven, eight, nine hours outside hospital. The ambulance crew said it was not unusual for patients to need to order food.’

He revealed the details at a meeting with Conservative MSP Alexander Burnett, Tory candidate Harriet Cross and the Friends of the Jubilee Hospital Huntly group, which is against plans to end the 24-hour minor injuries unit service which could put pressure on other A&E wards.

Ms Cross, candidate for Gordon and Buchan, said: ‘It’s incredibly worrying that, in one week, ambulances were stuck outside A&E across Grampian for nearly three hours on at least 62 occasions. Not only does this demonstrate the massive pressure our hospitals are under, but it also reflects the true scale of the crisis facing the Scottish Ambulance Service.

‘The waits are now so shockingly bad that I have been told patients are having to order takeaways to ambulances because they are stuck outside hospitals for several hours without food.

‘These types of situations are completely unacceptable for people to be faced with. For patients suffering strokes or heart attacks, minutes could be the difference between life and death.’ Fiona Murray of the Friends of the Jubilee Hospital group, which is campaigning against the plan to close the Huntly hospital’s minor injuries unit between 7pm and 7am, said: ‘It is lunacy that people are waiting so long and until something really dire happens it is going to continue.’

A spokesman for NHS Grampian said she ‘doesn’t recognise’ the patient takeaway claims.

She added: ‘People are triaged as normal with those facing life-threatening situations – such as heart attacks or strokes – an absolute priority.’

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