A&Es miss waiting time targets again
● ACCIDENT and emergency (A&E) units experienced another tough month in January as the closest departments to Halton missed the 95% four-hour waiting time target.
At Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WHH), 85.9% of patients were seen in under four hours.
St Helens And Knowsley Hospital Services NHS Trust (STHK), which covers Whiston, achieved a score of 81.2%.
WHH was marginally up on December (85.1%) while STHK was down from 83.9%.
Across England the average for January sunk to a record low of 85.1%, down from 86.2% in December.
Waiting time figures, which measure the time between arrival and admission, transfer or discharge, have slumped since 98.1% were seen within four hours in August 2010. ●
Last month WHH said the hospital’s A&E unit had been ‘extremely busy’ due to cold weather pressures and also because council budget cuts had reduced care outside hospitals and squeezing bed availability.
STHK said demand on its A&E unit had soared by 15% in four years with 4,000 more patients seen in 2016 compared to 2015.
Both trusts paid tribute to staff.
The BBC reported on Thursday, March 9, that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had made a speech in which he said A&E units must meet the 95% target as it was ‘critical for patient safety’.
He said an extra £2bn over three years of social care funding announced in the Budget would ease the pressure and hospitals could be back up to 95% next year.