Trolley waits the worst in England
THE trust behind Bristol Royal Infirmary and Weston General Hospital has recorded the worst A&E ‘trolley waits’ of any in England.
The hospitals in Bristol city centre and Weston-super-Mare reported for September a total of 456 patients who waited more than 12 hours for a bed after the decision to admit them to a ward.
That means the two hospitals – both run by the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston trust (UHBW) – had a staggering nine per cent of England’s recorded 12-hour-plus trolley waits in September. The total figure across 207 trusts in England was 5,025, which is the highest ever recorded.
The UHBW hospitals had 4,428 emergency admissions in total that month, of which 1,748 involved trolley waits longer than four hours. The 456 waits longer than 12 hours made up more than 10 per cent of UHBW emergency admissions.
This figure was significantly worse than that from August, when UHBW hospitals had 257 trolley waits longer than 12 hours, out of 4,552 emergency admissions.
Southmead Hospital, run by the North Bristol trust, had far fewer trolley waits than UHBW in September, at just 38 out of 4,687 emergency admissions.
The month’s record worst figure for England – 5,025 trolley waits longer than 12 hours – comes after there were 2,794 in August. The previous record was 3,825, in January 2021, according to the Health Service Journal.
Dr Mark Smith, the trust’s deputy chief executive and chief operating officer, said: “Like a lot of hospitals across the country, we have seen a substantial increase in demand on our emergency departments.
“We always aim to see and treat patients as quickly and safely as possible, and are working with our local health and care partners to ensure the timely discharge of medically fit patients, so that bed spaces are available for emergency admissions.
“We would like to apologise to any of our patients who have experienced a longer wait in our emergency departments.
“The trust has recently invested in a Same Day Emergency Care unit, which appropriate patients may be triaged to. As this unit increases its hours of operation, we hope it will help to further reduce the number of patients experiencing longer waits.”