Delays are so bad across the West Midlands, an ambulance worker describes the situation as a car crash.
A patient had to wait 20 hours in the back of an ambulance as NHS pressures saw acute handover delays at hospitals.
Meanwhile, the average response time for ambulances to reach emergency patients hit nearly 11 minutes locally. Guidelines say it should be seven.Worcestershire Royal Hospital - which has recently opened a new multi million-pound extension to its emergency department - was forced for more than seven hours on Sunday to divert ambulances to Alexandra Hospital in the same county.
Scores of patients across the region have had to wait outside hospitals for more than one hour - with 37 such delays at Royal Stoke alone.A spokesperson for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "The ambulance service relies on each part of the health and social care system working together so that our ambulances can get to patients in the community quickly.
"We are working incredibly hard with all of our NHS and social care partners to prevent these delays; looking at new ways to safely hand over patients quickly so that our crews can respond more rapidly and save more lives."
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