Two thirds of ambulances arriving at the A&E department of Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry over the past year have failed to hit 'turnaround target' of 30 minutes

Two thirds of ambulances which arrived at Altnagelvin Hospital's A&E department in the last year failed to meet 'turnaround' targets, it was revealed today.

When an ambulance arrives at hospital, the aim is for the patient to be handed over to A&E staff and the vehicle ready for the next call within 30 minutes.

However, of the 14,279 ambulances which arrived at Altnagelvin in the period from August 2020 to July 2021, 9,085 of them failed to hit this 30 minute target.

The figures released by the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) are again being seen as evidence of the pressure which hospital staff, and in particular A&E departments, are facing due to the ongoing Covid pandemic.

“Handover times for NIAS crews at emergency departments remain a significant challenge and impacts on our ability to respond to calls in the community,” said a NIAS spokesperson.

The figures show that it is taking ambulances which arrive at Altnagelvin an average of just over 39 minutes to turnaround and be back ready for the next call.

According to NIAS, the delays have resulted in 2,892 hours being lost for local ambulance crews.

The number of ambulances missing turnaround targets at Altnagelvin represent 63.2% of the 999 crews which arrived at the hospital in the past year.

Other hospitals throughout Northern Ireland are experiencing similar difficulties, with the average turnaround time in the country's 13 acute hospitals being 48 minutes.

The worst affected is the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast where 23,850 (83.5%) of ambulances missed the turnaround targets from August 2020 to July 2021.

Across Northern Ireland's acute hospitals, there were a total of 138,881 ambulance attendances in the past year.

Of these, 103,870 failed to hit the 30-minute turnaround target.

This, according to NIAS, represents 48,368 lost ambulance hours.