FOUR patients waited over 20 hours for handovers in the back of ambulances outside Shropshire's main hospital in September, a politician has said.

North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan has urged the new Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, to rapidly take action to get the NHS through winter as new statistics reveal the crisis of emergency care in the county.

The Lib Dem MP said: "Handover delays are getting worse, not better, despite them being deemed to be at the highest possible risk level for more than a year.

"Meanwhile, we’ve had health secretaries coming and going through a revolving door.

"Steve Barclay now needs to take urgent action to relieve the pressure on hospitals and ambulances by tackling social care and implementing an emergency plan ahead of the winter."

OTHER NEWS:

Shropshire remains the worst place in the West Midlands to call for an ambulance, with the average response time for the most serious Category 1 calls in Shropshire being 12 minutes and 15 seconds, according to the latest figures published by the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

The target time is seven minutes and in Birmingham the average response time is seven minutes and two seconds.

Ms Morgan also said handover delays have gotten worse in recent months, now going over the hour mark at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital's A&E.

And she claimed one elderly and disabled woman in North Shropshire waited 10 hours with a fractured spine for an ambulance to arrive after falling this week.

Ms Morgan added: "Paramedics, doctors and nurses are taking a huge mental toll as they deal with delays which are not their fault, so it’s not surprising many of them are deciding to leave.

"The system is at breaking point and it is only autumn, so it is crucial the Government quickly provides a plan to get through winter as well as implementing long-term solutions to fix our broken NHS."