Ambulance handover delays at hospitals in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough soared in December, with some people experiencing more than ten-hour waits in an ambulance outside a hospital.

As part of our special news feature entitled 'Is the NHS Broken', we are investigating the impact ambulance handover delays have had on our readers to highlight the situation staff and patients are in and how people can help.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), which runs Addenbrooke's Hospital, and North West Angla NHS Foundation Trust (NWAFT), which runs Peterborough City Hospital and Hinchingbrooke Hospital, all experienced an increase in delays for December.

Whilst handover delays are showing the first signs of improvement in the area, in some of the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year's, more than 50 per cent of arrivals would be waiting more than 30 minutes to be seen.

How have the delays affected patients?

A March resident wrote to us that her mother had collapsed and needed medical assistance on December 30 but was faced with lengthy delays upon arrival at Peterborough City Hospital.

An ambulance crew swiftly arrived in under five minutes, but at the hospital, more than 15 ambulances were queueing, which led to the resident and her mother waiting 10 hours before entering the hospital.

"My mother was their first call of the day, and the ambulance crew ended the shift as she was going into the hospital," she said.

"They explained how frustrated they were, and one fairly new ambulance crew told us how unfulfilled the whole experience leaves them daily."

Upon leaving the hospital, she said there were now 20 ambulances queuing, and A&E itself was "utterly heaving" over New Year's.

Chatteris resident, Jane West, shared her experience of handover delays arriving at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn with her mother, who was being treated for a broken hip.

When visiting her mother in the hospital, she would also see more than 15 queuing on some days.

Both were "disgusted" by the number of ambulances having to wait and said that it was obvious staff in the hospital were "unbelievably stretched", with one nurse not having a break until 3.50pm.

Jane wrote to MP Steve Barclay regarding the incident from September 2. She said: "This is definitely not a complaint against the ambulance service, the hospital or any of the staff but more so of the state of our, once wonderful, NHS.

"This government should be ashamed of themselves and how they have allowed this to happen. If they do not invest quickly and appropriately, the NHS will soon be no more."

A Hunts Post reader commented on Facebook that their relative spent six hours waiting for an ambulance to Addenbrooke's hospital, and an Ely Standard reader commented that she had been forced to wait outside Peterborough City Hospital for seven hours.

She said: "The care was wonderful, but the seven hours outside was not good.

"The Paramedics spent their whole shift looking after me. These three lovely people deserve a pay rise."

To help prevent delays from happening in the future, hospital trusts encourage the local community to use NHS 111 for advice.

That way, people can get advice on where to access appropriate treatment before calling an ambulance, potentially easing pressure on the service from the huge demand until a sustainable government solution can be found.