Paramedics spent more than 6,000 hours waiting in Norfolk hospital car parks in just one month, stark new figures have revealed.
In September, the region's ambulance service "lost" 6,343 hours to handover delays, leaving hard-working paramedics "heartbroken" and frustrated.
The statistic, known as "lost hours" is the time lapsed once an ambulance has passed its 15-minute target to hand a patient over to hospital emergency departments.
In September alone, this figure was the equivalent of 4,228 football matches - or more than 500 12-hour ambulance shifts - which is the worst total ever recorded.
This leaves both patients and workers left waiting in the back of the ambulance until there is space for them to be moved into hospital - preventing people from receiving the care they need and paramedics from picking up further patients.
Union bosses say the situation is leaving paramedics "heartbroken", with delays preventing them from doing the job they set out to do.
Ashley Foster, regional organiser of the GMB Union branch in Norwich, which is currently balloting its members over strike action, said: "Ambulance staff are finding this incredibly difficult to live with.
"Nobody signs up to be a paramedic to sit in the car park of a hospital - they do it because they want to help save lives.
"Paramedics are getting towards the very end of their tethers.
"They are telling me they are questioning why they put themselves through the stress when they could make similar money working at Lidl or Aldi."
The stark figure was highlighted by East of England Ambulance Service Trust chief executive Tom Abell in written responses to two prevention of future death statements about Norfolk women who died in alarmingly similar circumstances.
Barbara Hollis and Christine Ruse died 10 months apart following delays in transporting them just over a mile from private hospital Spire to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after operations.
Their deaths prompted senior coroner Jacqueline Lake to highlight concerns around ambulance delays in an official report.
In response, Mr Abell wrote: "The effect on our response time is hugely significant and correlates directly with delayed handovers.
"Escalations continue to take place regularly at executive level to try and ease this situation, but the trend nevertheless is still currently worsening."
The troubles have driven the trust to roll-out a number of measures to try and speed up handovers.
These include a "drop and go" system whereby paramedics call hospitals ahead so patients can be left immediately, increasing the use of private ambulances and utilising non-clinical ambulance drivers.
Alex Stewart, chief executive of Healthwatch Norfolk, said the problem was broader than the delays facing ambulances.
He said: "There is a myriad of issues causing this problem and there will not be one obvious solution.
"There needs to be a multi-faceted approach to grasp the nettle.
"My fear is that with the colder weather of winter coming, a possible increase in Covid cases and flu, the problem will inevitably keep on getting worse."
A spokesperson for health and social care in Norfolk and Waveney said: "Our local system is under extreme pressure right now, particularly our urgent and emergency services.
"The situation is very complex, but one of our biggest challenges is that our hospitals are fuller and people are staying there longer.
"We are experiencing significant ambulance handover delays at our hospitals and people are waiting an unacceptable length of time in ambulances.
“Everyone arriving at an emergency department is triaged and prioritised according to their clinical need and staff are working very hard to make sure patients are seen as quickly as possible.
"This in turn makes it more difficult to admit the next people who need to stay in hospital and makes it harder to create space in our emergency departments for the next patients who need to be seen.
“We are increasing the number of beds in our system to allow more patients to be discharged, bolstering our workforce and expanding support in the community to prevent people from having to be admitted to hospital in the first place, from falls for example."
Car park deaths
Handover delays not only prevent paramedics from responding to further 999 calls, but equally stand in the way of patients who need to be in hospital arriving.
In certain cases, however, they can see people's conditions deteriorate while they wait and in the worst cases, even die.
This has happened in a handful of cases in recent years, with patients dying in the backs of ambulances outside of more than one of the region's hospitals.
On August 22, an elderly man died outside of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after his condition suddenly deteriorated.
In November 2021, a man in his 70s went into cardiac arrest while waiting outside of the same hospital.
This came a month after a women suffered the same fate while waiting to be admitted to the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston.
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