Work is being carried out to tackle the issue and improve the wellbeing of ambulance staffGurdip Thandi Local Democracy Reporter, Gurdip Thandi and Local Democracy Reporter
13:49, 28 Nov 2025
A West Midlands Ambulance Service stock image of an ambulance (Image: West Midlands Ambulance Service/PA Wire)
Ambulances are still spending too much time stuck outside Birmingham hospitals due to being unable to transfer patients to busy departments.
Members of the University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB) NHS Foundation Trust’s board were told there had been an increase in 45 minute ambulance handover breaches.
This has raised concerns for the wellbeing of West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) staff, particularly those unable to finish shifts on time as a result.
READ MORE: Birmingham City’s ambitious stadium plans ‘starting to become a reality’ in new milestone
Bosses heard work is now taking place between UHB and WMAS to draw up a plan to alleviate the issue.
A report to the board said there had been a total of 3,831 breaches at Queen Elizabeth, Heartlands and Good Hope hospitals in September compared with 3,410 in August.
But all three hospitals had shown improvement in average ambulance handover times in September 2025 when compared with September 2024.
Data showed Queen Elizabeth Hospital recorded an average handover time of 44 minutes and 15 seconds this year, an improvement on the time of just over one hour and 10 minutes in September 2024.
Heartlands Hospital recorded the highest average time in September 2024 of just over one hour and 35 minutes but this is now down to 56 minutes and 37 seconds.
And while Good Hope Hospital still has an average over an hour (1:03.54), this is much less than in September 2024 when it recorded ambulance waits of just over one hour and 28 minutes.
The report said the issue continues to have NHS England oversight and they were working towards an average ambulance handover of 15 minutes with a target that no handover takes more than 45 minutes.
Help a child in poverty this Christmas
Thousands of children from the West Midlands will wake up on Christmas day with no gifts – but there’s something you can do about it through our Brumwish Christmas campaign.
Order something from this Amazon wishlist and, working with Thrive Together Birmingham and Edgbaston Stadium, we will deliver direct to a poor or homeless child living in the area in time for Christmas day.
Birmingham Mail and Birmingham Live Grant a Christmas #Brumwish
Iain Pickles, UHB chief operating officer, said: “45 minute ambulance handovers continues to be a persistent challenge.
“Over 40 per cent of vehicles arriving at UHB have taken more than 45 minutes to handover. We know we are an outlier in that regard.
“It is an area which requires some real focus. We met with counterparts from West Midlands Ambulance Service to agree how we can co-develop a plan to address that.
“We agreed in the immediate term to focus on a particular piece of work on how do we manage that particularly around shift handover for West Midlands Ambulance Service crews.
“We know there are a number of colleagues from WMAS who are delayed finishing shifts which has a significant impact on their wellbeing.
“We agreed we would do some immediate work to try to resolve that as a start of doing a broader piece of collaborative work with WMAS on how we really tackle the delayed handover issue more substantively.”