A&E patients left in ambulances for up to FIVE hours 'so trusts can meet government targets'

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

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Doctors warned last night that the practice of "patient-stacking" was putting patients' health at risk.

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that last year 43,576 patients waited longer than one hour before being let into emergency units.

Only seven out of 11 ambulance trusts responded to the survey, so the true figure could be far higher.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb is writing to health secretary Alan Johnson to demand an urgent investigation into the practice.

"This is evidence of shocking systematic failure in our emergency services," he said.

Labour brought in the four-hour A&E target to end the scandal of patients waiting for days in casualty or being kept on trolleys in corridors.

But a shortage of out-of-hours GP care, after thousands of doctors opted out of treating patients outside working hours under lucrative new contracts, means more and more are going to casualty units, putting them under greater pressure.

Dr Jonathan Fielden of the British Medical Association said: "The vast majority of patients coming into hospital by ambulance are in critical need of care in hospital and therefore delay can worsen their outcome."

Sam Oestreicher of Unison, which represents most ambulance workers, said: "Ambulances should not be used as mobile waiting rooms. They should be freed to do their job.

"These figures show there's a terrible-and colossal waste of ambulance resources."

Conservative health spokesman Mike Penning said: "Not admitting people to hospital but stacking patients in car parks beggars belief in the 21st century."

However the Department of Health said the statistics did not reflect time spent by patients in the ambulance before being admitted to accident and emergency.

"They measure the time taken to turn around an ambulance for its next emergency, including cleaning and restocking the ambulance," said a spokesman.

"These figures must be seen in the context of the 4.3million patient journeys undertaken by emergency vehicles in 2006/07."