Ambulances Are Still Queuing Nearly Twice as Long as They Should. That's Where They Want to Add Eight Miles.
Last winter, ambulances handing over patients in our region took nearly twice the target time and hospitals were already close to full before the cold even arrived — and NHS bosses still plan to move our children's nearest A&E eight miles further away.
Here's a number that should worry anyone planning to move a children's A&E further from home: 32 minutes. That's how long ambulances in our region spent, on average, queuing to hand patients over at hospital doors last winter. The target is 15 minutes.
We're not talking about a quiet Tuesday. We're talking about the system as it actually runs, winter after winter, right now — before anyone has moved a single service further away.
Last winter's own figures
Across the North West, four-hour A&E performance ran at 71.4% between November 2025 and February 2026 — meaning close to three in ten patients waited longer than four hours to be seen. Attendances hit 1,285,479 over that period, with 23,000 more ambulance call-outs than the winter before. That's according to NHS England's own regional report, published in March 2026.
Handover delays did improve on the year before — but only from 38 minutes to 32. Category 2 calls, the category that covers many child emergencies like breathing difficulty or a suspected stroke, averaged 31 minutes against a national target of 18 minutes. Still nearly double, in an emergency, when minutes are what "the golden hour" is built on.
Hospitals were already full before the cold hit
Nationally, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine recorded hospital bed occupancy at 93.1% in the week before Christmas 2025 — well above the level doctors say is safe. That same week, flu patients alone were occupying 2,935 hospital beds. RCEM's own words: emergency departments were "still struggling over Christmas… at capacity constantly."
None of this is about blaming the doctors, nurses and paramedics who kept that system running. We love the staff at Ormskirk. This is about the people who looked at figures like these and decided the right moment to move our children's emergency care eight miles further away was now.
What eight extra miles means, in this context
To be precise, because precision protects our case: Ormskirk Hospital isn't closing. But its children's A&E — the door families use in an emergency — is being moved to Southport, currently 10–20 minutes closer to specialist centres at Alder Hey, Whiston and Aintree than Southport will be. Add that distance onto ambulance queues that are already running at double the target, in a region that's already short of beds before winter properly starts, and you're not moving a service. You're removing slack from a system that has none to spare.
What we're asking for
We asked. 7,840 of us responded to the consultation, and keeping our children's A&E at Ormskirk was the most popular answer. They chose Southport anyway. Lancashire County Council's health scrutiny committee has since asked, unanimously and across every party, for the Health Secretary to call in this decision. Our MP has asked too. That request is still sitting unanswered.
Before the next winter's figures come in, someone in Whitehall needs to answer it. Sign the petition. Share this. Make them answer.
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