THE number of sick and injured patients in the south who wait more than 30 minutes in an ambulance outside hospital before being transferred to A&E has increased by a third in the last two years, new figures have revealed.

According to NHS England, patients should be transferred from an ambulance to a A&E within 15 minutes.

However, figures for South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves Hampshire, reveal that the number of patients waiting more than 30 minutes rose from 9445 in 2014/2015 to 12,607 in 2016/2017.

Meanwhile, the number of those waiting more than 60 minutes went up from 3757 in 2014/2015 to 3927 in 2016/2017.

The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act to Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth.

Mark Ainsworth, Director of Operations at South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, said: “When crews are unable to handover patients within the target time of 15 minutes following arrival, this can impact the responsiveness of our service to patients calling 999 – especially if crews are delayed waiting at hospitals for significantly long periods.

“Across the South Central region, we have on average one ambulance per 23,000 people during the day and one ambulance per 35,000 people at night.

"Any delays at local A&Es can therefore have a significant impact on our ability to get to all patients as quickly as we would like.

“But Mr Ainsworth added that when such delays occur clinical managers are deployed to life-threatening calls where possible.

“We are therefore confident that local people can be reassured that should they suffer a life-threatening illness or injury, we will have the staff and vehicles available to respond quickly to them”, he added.