Paramedics have complained they are having to wait up to four hours to drop off patients at an overcrowded hospital.

Ambulance workers said today the closure of Crawley's A&E ward had forced Sussex paramedics with seriously ill patients to wait in queues of up to 14 crews before handing over patients at East Surrey Hospital in Redhill.

Meanwhile they are unavailable to answer emergency calls in Crawley, Horsham and East Grinstead - prompting fears a major incident at Gatwick airport or on the roads could end in large loss of life.

Paramedics have revealed a patient with chest pains was left waiting in a corridor outside casualty for four hours on Tuesday.

The festive season has put extra strain on casualty units, with patients suffering pneumonia, chest infections and heart problems.

Duncan Jones, chairman of the Sussex Ambulance branch of Unison, said that before Christmas, the hospital had introduced a policy of only admitting patients when there was a bed available.

Ambulance crews arriving with seriously ill patients now have to wheel them in on trolleys and wait outside until a bed becomes available and the patient can be handed over.

Previously, patients had been allowed to wait on trolleys or in corridors inside the unit, freeing up the ambulance crews to attend other calls.

Mr Jones said: "There is nowhere for patients to go and it creates huge problems for the hospital. The closure of Crawley Hospital's casualty unit has had a significant impact. Before it closed, we didn't have this problem.

"We would sometimes have one or two ambulances waiting a few minutes but now it takes three or four hours, especially when there are ten, 12 or even 14 ambulances waiting outside the hospital."

He said there were three ambulances in Crawley, two in Horsham and one in East Grinstead, so when more than one was tied up at the hospital, it led to slower response times.

He said: "This problem has been going on for a long time and we had hoped to have reached a solution by now."

One paramedic said: "It's already slowing down response times. A patient I went to on Wednesday waited 45 minutes for an ambulance."

A Sussex Ambulance spokeswoman said: "We are currently experiencing delays in handing over patients to the casualty department at Redhill, which results in the reduced availability of ambulance crews across the central Sussex area.

"We are acutely aware of the additional pressures this places both on our front line staff and on staff at the hospital. We have been and will continue to work with both the hospitals trust and Surrey Ambulance to resolve these issues."

Gary Walker, chief executive at Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said those with life-threatening conditions were seen immediately and any crew needing to respond to an emergency would be released.

He said the casualty ward at East Surrey Hospital saw more than 300 patients every day, rising to 350 over Christmas.

He said there was no record of a patient complaining of chest pains waiting four hours to be admitted and dismissed fears ambulance crews would not be able to respond to a disaster as "a gross overreaction that damages the reputation of the NHS".