HOSPITALS in Dorset have been fined a total of more than £91,000 for delaying ambulance crews at A&E departments.

The Royal Bournemouth, Poole and West Dorset hospitals were forced to pay the South Western Ambulance Service Trust (SWAST) for hold-ups in the last financial year.

“Our ambulances and staff should be out there dealing with patients – we can’t do that if they’re queuing at A&E departments,” said Ken Wenman, chief executive of the ambulance trust.

The figures were revealed as a result of a Freedom of Information request.

The trust issued fines of almost £350,000 to hospitals across the West Country, with the worst offender, the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro, fined £71,000.

Mr Wenman said the trust has seen “significant improvements” at some hospitals since charges were introduced two years ago.

It was hoped the charges would encourage hospitals to improve handovers and reduce delays.

A statement from Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch NHS Foundation Trust said: “We have worked very closely with SWAST to significantly reduce the handover time for patients by more than three minutes.

“A number of improvements continue within the emergency department and as well as investing in new technology such as ambulance arrival screens and an alert system, we continually update staff training.

“Our partnership work with SWAST continues in order to improve the service for our patients whilst ensuring safe and thorough clinical handovers.

“As this data has been provided by SWAST we are unable to confirm these figures.”

A statement from Poole Hospital said: “We share the ambulance service’s view that their operational vehicles and staff should experience the absolute minimum of delays while attending hospitals and we work hard to ensure this is the case at Poole Hospital.

“The ambulance service’s data relating to Poole Hospital differs from that shown in our own audits, and we are in discussions with SWAST to better understand this.

“Both organisations continue to work together to ensure a smooth and timely handover from the ambulance service to Poole Hospital, and we are pleased to report our most recently collected data shows that the vast majority of handovers – 96 per cent – do occur within 15 minutes.”