Despite repeated promises of improvement, ambulance handover delays remain entrenched. In 2024/25, 17 trusts averaged more than 45 minutes to hand over patients at A&E, while the national average was still 27 minutes,  nearly double the standard.

The numbers translate into real harm. Last year, 1.6 million ambulance hours were lost outside A&Es, the equivalent of 100,000 urgent 999 calls every month going unanswered because crews were stuck in hospital car parks. Patients have even been moved between ambulances when shifts ended, a visible sign of a system forced to treat vehicles as holding bays.

The cause is not inefficiency on the road. It is the absence of staffed beds and safe discharge pathways inside hospitals. Corridor care, delayed flow, and suppressed agency use mean there is no flex to absorb surges. Winter 2025 threatens more of the same: ambulances parked, wards overflowing, patients waiting.

No patient believes waiting in an ambulance is safer than being on a ward. Yet policy choices have left the NHS using car parks as overflow. If families were asked what they’d prefer, safe ward cover with flexible staffing, or hours spent in a vehicle outside A&E, the answer would be obvious.