Patient waits 'six hours' in ambulance as '100 people fit for discharge stuck in hospital beds' during paramedic's 'worst shift ever'

A paramedic emerged from the ‘worst shift’ he’d ever had to report one patient waiting six hours in the back of an ambulance as the NHS suffers ‘New Year’s Eve’ level pressures. ‘The NHS has collapsed’, warned the paramedic, as hospitals, ambulance services, GP practices and more face crippling pressure across the country.

He said he waited outside Stepping Hill Hospital's emergency department for hours. “I’ve never seen it this bad in my life,” he told the Manchester Evening News .

Meanwhile, some '100 patients’ are stuck in the hospital waiting to go home but are unable to be discharged due to shortages in social care, according to the paramedic. He added that crews would normally have been directed to take patients to other hospitals in the region facing less demand, but are instead being told ‘all hospitals in Greater Manchester are in the same position’.

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A patient waited in an ambulance outside A&E for 370 minutes, while ‘multiple patients’ were waiting up to three hours in the queue of 15 ambulances outside Stepping Hill’s A&E on Tuesday evening, said the paramedic. A patient with severe sepsis, on oxygen, waited some 20 minutes.

Huge waits have also plagued patients arriving by themselves into emergency departments because there is 'no movement of people from beds back into their homes’. On Friday, July 22, the Royal Bolton Hospital’s A&E had a sign reading: "There is currently a 40+ hour [wait] for a medical bed. There are six beds only left throughout the entire hospital.

"We have no beds/cubicles in A&E due to no movement. If you are waiting for a ward, you will be in our waiting room for