Dozens of A&E patients had to wait more than half an hour outside the county's emergency departments over Christmas week after arriving in an ambulance, new figures show.

NHS England data reveals 775 patients arrived at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's (OUH) A&Es at the John Radcliffe and Banbury's Horton General by ambulance between December 21 and 27.

Of these, 51 had to wait between 30 and 60 minutes, with seven forced to wait for more than an hour.

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It comes as Covid hospital admissions at the trust have been steadily rising with now 185 patients who have tested positive for the virus being treated at OUH.

This is up from 43 on December 1.

National guidance says patients arriving at an emergency department by ambulance must be handed over to the care of A&E staff within 15 minutes.

The busiest day was December 23, when 18 people were waiting at least half an hour.

On Christmas Day, there were five patients unable to be admitted to A&E within the recommended time.

A delay does not necessarily mean the patient waited in the ambulance itself – but staff were not available to complete the handover.

Across England, 789 patients who arrived in ambulances to A&E had to wait this long on Christmas Day – among 9,283 across the whole week.

This was down, however, from 13,050 who were delayed the week before.

Responding to the figures, health think tank the Nuffield Trust said the NHS is currently under 'an enormous amount of pressure'.

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Helen Buckingham, director of strategy at the organisation, said: “The queues of ambulances that we have seen are likely to be the result of both the surge in Covid cases and reduced capacity in hospitals caused by staff shortages and infection control measures.

“This reduced capacity means that a similar or even a slightly lower number of ambulance arrivals can still result in a longer queue when they can’t offload.”

Since November 30, more than 45,000 patients in England were delayed for at least 30 minutes.

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At OUH, there have been 257 delays in the past four weeks.

Sam Foster, chief nursing officer at OUH, said: "In common with the rest of the NHS, this is a hugely challenging time as we see increasing numbers of Covid positive patients but we are using our tried and tested escalation plans to ensure that we have the right staff in the right place to care for patients."

She added: “We are working closely with our partners in health and social care, including with South Central Ambulance Service, to minimise delays for patients who are brought by ambulance to our emergency departments at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and the Horton General Hospital."

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