QUEUING ambulances are waiting for up to five hours outside Royal Lancaster Infirmary’s accident and emergency department with patients on board.

Paramedic and ambulance union rep Paul Carlisle said sometimes up to 10 ambulances have been left waiting.

North West Ambulance Service statistics reveal RLI is ranked 32 out of 33 for ambulance turnaround times in the North West.

Mr Carlisle, a GMB Ambulance Service Union official, said he often had to wait more than three hours in his ambulance outside the A and E department, where emergency patients from South Lakeland are treated.

“It is serious and if we are queued up it is not good for the public because ambulances are tied up at A and E waiting.

“It has been a problem which has been getting worse since University Hospitals Morecambe Bay Trust (UHMBT) downgraded Westmorland General.

“It has got to a stage that we are waiting more than four hours which is dangerous.

"If all the ambulances are outside A and E, who is going to cover the emergency calls?”

Mr Carlisle, an ambulanceman for 12 years, said NWAS had brought in measures to try to alleviate the problem – including hospital arrival screens to indicate queing times – but said that the ‘buck stopped at the door’ of UHMBT.

Between October 24 and October 30, 343 ambulances attended RLI with an average turnaround time of 45.5 minutes – 11 minutes more than the next ranking North West hospital.

Mr Carlisle said: “The ambulance service has tried and the doctors and nurses work hard but it is not their fault, there are simply not enough beds.”

Steve Vaughan, director of operations and performance at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are aware that there have been some peaks in demand in the A and E department at Lancaster over recent weeks which have caused delays in ambulance turnaround, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.”

He said that NWAS was introducing a system to triage patients to enable more of them to be seen in the primary care assessment service at Westmorland General Hospital.

He added: “An ongoing problem is that some people who have not had an accident and do not need urgent medical attention present at the departments and wait to be seen.

“This continues to create additional pressures on our emergency services. There are a range of services which people can use for non-emergencies, such as their pharmacy or GP, NHS Direct and NHS Choices.”

Alan Price, secretary of South Lakes Health Action, said: “If it is a problem that people go to A and E when they do not need to, then the trust cannot just blame the patients.

"Instead they need to educate them as to where they should be going.

"In the meantime, they will need to do something about their resources because queuing will not go away.”