Revealed... our already under

FULL beds and long ambulance waits hit hospitals in Greater Manchester in the first week of January as the NHS continues to come under pressure.

Figures just released show that 94.2 per cent of general beds at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Trust were occupied in the week ending January 6, as were 93.2pc at Salford Royal.

Bed occupancy rates were even worse at Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care, at 97.2pc over the week – that meant just 84 free bed spaces across the trust during the period.

Health experts advise that occupancy levels should ideally be under 85pc. Anything over this level is regarded as riskier for patients as this leads to bed shortages, periodic bed crises, and a rise in healthcare-acquired infections such as MRSA.

A study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal found that reducing bed occupancy to 90pc or less led to a drop in death rates and an improvement in waiting time performance in A&E.

At Salford Royal, 95.5pc of critical care beds were occupied over the week ending January 6, and so were 86.9pc of critical care beds at Tameside and Glossop.

The Royal College of Anaesthetists’ says persistent critical care bed occupancy of more than 70pc suggests that a unit is too small, and occupancy of 80pc or more is likely to result in non-clinical transfers that carry associated risks.

In December, at Pennine Acute, just 78.8pc of patients waited less than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge in December.

Patients visiting the trust’s major A&Es were even more likely to face long waits, with just 72.3pc waiting less than four hours.

This was the trust’s worst performance since A&E waiting times began being measured on a monthly basis in June 2015.

At Stockport, 71.8pc of patients spent less than four hours in A&E in December, while it was 77pc at the Salford Royal. Demand on NHS resources in Greater Manchester means dozens of ambulances a day are having to wait before off-loading patients into A&E. Trusts across the area saw 1,000 ambulances wait more than 30 minutes to handover patients over the week ending January 6, with 212 waiting more than an hour, according to the NHS England figures. The target is for handovers to take under 15 minutes. At Stockport, more than a third of ambulances arriving in the last week (36pc) had to wait more than 30 minutes to handover, a total of 228 ambulances, as did a fifth of ambulances at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh (22pc) and Pennine Acute (19pc).

Across England, in December 2018, 86.4pc of patients waited longer than four hours from arrival to admission, discharge or transfer, according to figures released by NHS England.

This was down from 87.6pc in November, but was higher than the 85pc recorded in December 2017.

Patients were more likely to face long waits in major A&Es – 79.3pc waited less than four hours in December, compared to 76.9pc in December 2017.

There were 280 patients in December who had to wait more than 12 hours from a decision to admit to admission, so called trolley waits.

However, this was down from 517 a year before.

President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Taj Hassan, said: “It is commendable that