Thousands of patients across the South East were left waiting outside accident and emergency departments in an ambulance, new figures have revealed.

Nearly 12,000 in the region were left waiting outside hospital A&E units for more than an hour.

That is a huge increase on previous years for the South East Coast Ambulance Service.

Two years ago there were nearly 9,000 fewer incidents, data made available to the Labour party shows.

Ministers expect handovers to last no longer than 30 minutes, but staff say they are working to reduce delays.

A&E consultant Adrian Boyle said much of the difficulties stemmed from so-called bed blockers.

He said: "There are lots and lots of people waiting in hospital who could be looked after either in their own home or in a residential care facility, and they are stranded in hospital.

"That means the hospital's full; the emergency department's full and we can't offload ambulances."

A South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said:“Handover delays at hospital continue to be a significant issue for the Trust across our whole region, which severely impact on our ability to respond to patients in the community as quickly as we would like.

“We recognise that improving handover delays will take a whole system approach.

That is why, under the leadership of our Medical Director, we have developed an improvement plan with partners.

"We will continue to work closely with our staff, all hospitals and other NHS partners in our area to reduce delays.”