'Significant improvement' reported in ambulance handover times at Antrim Area and Causeway hospitals
A “significant improvement” in ambulance handover times exceeding two hours was highlighted at a recent meeting of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust board.
Interim chief executive Suzanne Pullins acknowledged the “commitment and hard work of the emergency teams”.
A Trust board performance report for July said that 122 patients had faced a waiting time of more than two hours to be handed over to the medical staff at Antrim Hospital during the month and 59 patients faced this wait at Causeway Hospital.
Overall, Antrim Hospital received 1,662 ambulance arrivals while there were 643 at Causeway that month..
During April, 250 patient arrivals by ambulance required more than two hours to be transferred to the care of Antrim Hospital and 100 at Causeway. In May, 35 per cent of patients had to wait for more than two hours to be handed over at Antrim Hospital and 16 per cent at Causeway Hospital. No figures were available for June.
By comparison, in December of last year, 436 patients had a wait of more than two hours to be handed over to Antrim Hospital staff following arrival by ambulance and 150 at Causeway Hospital.
During July, 8.7 per cent of patients were handed over to staff at Antrim Hospital within 15 minutes and 8.8 per cent at Causeway Hospital, Coleraine. Seventy-eight per cent were handed over to hospital staff at Antrim within 60 minutes and 72 per cent at Causeway Hospital.
The average patient handover time at Antrim Hospital during July was 48 minutes and 54 minutes at Causeway compared to 37 minutes at Antrim Hospital and 39 minutes at Causeway during May and 74 minutes at Antrim Hospital and 82 minutes at Causeway Hospital, during April.
A 1.6 per cent increase in attendance at Antrim Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) attendances was reported between April and July compared to the same period last year and a 5.7 per cent rise at Causeway Hospital.
There was a 4.2 increase in attendances at Antrim Hospital’s ED by patients aged over 75 years during the same period and 4.3 per cent at Causeway.
A performance report for May showed that 11.8 per cent of patients were handed over to medical staff within 15 minutes following arrival by ambulance at Antrim Hospital and 8.6 per cent at Causeway Hospital, Coleraine.
Eighty-five per cent of patients were handed over to staff at Antrim Hospital within 60 minutes and 83 per cent at Causeway Hospital; during the month.
During April, 70 per cent of hand-overs occurred within 60 minutes at Antrim Hospital and 60 per cent at Causeway Hospital.
At Antrim Hospital, that month, 7.9 per cent took place within 15 minutes and 5.9 per cent within 15 minutes at Causeway Hospital.
A report on “ambulance hand-overs” in Northern Ireland in March 2025 by the Northern Ireland Audit Office states that “timely ambulance hand-overs require appropriate capacity and resources throughout the hospital, including in EDs and adequate care capacity within the community to enable timely patient discharges”.