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Fans have had to be placed at the doors of the Grange University Hospital to disperse fumes from ambulances queuing outside.  

Health bosses have said there are 300 patients stuck in hospital beds in Gwent who are otherwise well enough to leave, which is causing delays at the Emergency Department at the Grange Hospital near Cwmbran – including leaving patients waiting on ambulances.  

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, which runs the hospital, said it had worked with the ambulance service to install the fans “to create a safer environment for staff”. 

The Welsh Ambulance Service said during October this year its crews spent 2,858 hours waiting to hand over patients at the Grange, which was 13% of the total lost hours in Wales that month.  

It’s understood that last week the longest an ambulance was waiting outside the Grange with a patient was 16 and a half hours, with the average wait being two hours.  

David TC Davies, who is the UK Government’s secretary of state for Wales, visited the hospital on November 3 and said eight ambulances were waiting outside to hand over patients – some of which, he said, had been waiting for up to three-and-a-half hours.  

Mr Davies, who is the Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: “The situation is so bad they’ve had to put fans up to try and blow away the exhaust fumes from outside. They have to keep their engines running to keep their systems going and I think they ought to arrange an electrical hook up to reduce the need for having the engines running for hours like that.  

“It can’t be very good if they’ve acknowledged they’ve had to put fans up to blow away the fumes.”  

Lee Brooks, executive director of operations for the Welsh Ambulance Service, acknowledged waiting at hospitals is a concern for the service – but said it has still been able to attend more life-threatened patients within eight minutes than ever before.    

He apologised to patients and said: “It is fair to say that some patients wait a very long time to move from ambulance to hospitals, and during this time our crews are unable to respond to other patients in the community.

“This means that an ambulance crew will see less patients per shift than they used to and we have heard from our staff this has the potential to erode their clinical skill and confidence.”  

A health board spokesperson said: “This is not a standard of service that we are prepared to accept for our patients and work is under way in the hospital and with our local authority partners to address this as we move into winter. 

“We always prioritise patients requiring the most urgent, life-saving treatment and these patients are brought into the emergency department without delay. 

“We continue to work with our colleagues in the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust to ensure the timely transfer of patients from their ambulance into our care so we can release ambulance crews as quickly as possible to enable them to respond to emergency calls in our community. 

“We have also worked with the ambulance service to install fans to disperse vehicle emissions from waiting ambulances to create a safer environment for staff.”