Casualty waits of more than 12 hours are on rise
NHS crisis continues as hospitals feel strain
HUNDREDS more people are spending at least half a day in the emergency department at Leicester Royal Infirmary.
Figures have soared in the last four years as pressure on the unit increases, making it the busiest A&E in England.
The statistics come as University Hospitals Leicester (UHL), along with trusts up and down the country, face breaking point, with too many patients and too few beds.
People are being asked not to attend casualty unless the matter is severe or life-threatening.
NHS data shows in 2011/12, 191 people who attended accident and emergency were there for 12 hours or more from arrival to admission, discharge or transfer. By 2015/16, this had more than tripled to 623.
Richard Mitchell, chief operating officer at Leicester’s Hospitals, said they were running at full capacity, adding: “We continue to remind patients to make wise choices when they need healthcare advice and treatment and to seek suitable advice as soon as they begin to feel unwell and to always use alternatives to the emer- gency department wherever possible.”
The city hospital is not the only trust facing capacity problems. Over the period the proportion of people spending 12 hours or more in casualty departments in England has grown from one in 751 attendances (0.13%) to one in 225 (0.45%).
Four years ago some 48,128 A&E patients across England spent 12 hours or more in A&E from arrival to admission, discharge or transfer. By 2015/16, this had sky-rocketed 284% to 185,017, according to fig- ures from NHS Digital.
Those over 90 are the most likely to spend more than half a day in casualty, amount to one in 24 (4.1%) of cases, up from one in 73 attendances (1.38%) in 2011/12.
This possibly reflects the more complex needs of older people, making them more likely to need to be admitted, as well as increasing pressures in terms of finding beds.
Admissions for emergency care are growing each year. During 2015/16 there were 20.5 million attendances in England, up 4.6% from 19.3 million in 2014/15.
Almost half received an initial assessment within 10 minutes of arrival while three-quarters got one within an hour.
The average time from arrival to treatment was an hour and 17 minutes. Virtually half of attendances (49.3%) started treatment within an hour of arrival, and almost three-quarters (74.8%) had started treatment within two hours of arrival.
Most were out of the department after around two and a half hours.