Ambulances have spent nearly 55,000 hours waiting outside hospitals in Wales in just six months, BBC Wales has reported.
This figure means that ambulance crew have spent 2,269 days – over six years – waiting to transfer patients to hospital departments in a six month period before the end of February.
The ambulance service said there has been a “high increase” in delays due to substantial pressure on the NHS.
Opposition parties said patients are being put at risk as emergency cover could be compromised elsewhere while ambulances are unavailable waiting for patients to be admitted. They have called on the Welsh government to act and resolve this “potentially dangerous” situation.
The Government responded and said the delays are unacceptable, but maintained that most patients who needed to be seen to quickly waited longer than 30 minutes.
The ambulance service said it was working hard to ensure that all patients were given the care they needed whilst waiting to be admitted to hospital.
The single longest wait during the six month period was five hours and 39 minutes.
A spokesperson for the Welsh government said: “Lengthy patient handover delays are unacceptable and we expect all health boards to work with the ambulance service to keep delays to a minimum and continue to provide effective care throughout any delay, while the patient awaits handover.
“It is important to note that this is an international and UK-wide problem and the majority of patients in Wales who have a clinical need to be handed over to the care of A&E staff quickly are handed over within 30 minutes.
“Unfortunately there are occasions when there is a delay in handing over the patient to hospital staff.”