Anna Parry, from the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, said the system was not a case of abandoning patients and that good quality care required “close collaboration” between ambulance service employees and those working in emergency departments.
“However, it is also imperative that the key reasons for the bottlenecks being caused at hospitals are addressed nationally, especially delayed discharge of patients who are fit to go home and gaps in social care that prevent many from doing so.”
The national standard for patient handovers which emergency departments are supposed to aim for is 15 minutes, but the average handover time at hospitals for all English ambulance services is 30 minutes.
YAS said pressures across the health and social care system contributed to delays.
The government has previously said it was spending £450m tackling hospital waiting times, and that included 40 new same-day emergency care centres, which treated and discharged patients in the same day and avoided them being admitted to hospital.
It also said it would roll out almost 500 new ambulances across the country and proposed 15 mental health crisis assessment centres to help people avoid waiting at A&E departments.