Waiting time blow for A&Es in ‘winter like no other’

NEARLY A fifth of A&E patients in Leeds had to wait more than four hours to be seen between April 2021 and March 2022, it has been revealed.

Health service targets dictate that 95 per cent of A&E attendees should be seen within four hours.

Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said that 82.9 per cent of attendees at emergency departments were treated within the timeframe.

The CCG’s chairman said the NHS had suffered a “winter like no other,” while it was revealed earlier this month that some patients have had to wait up to 12 hours in waiting rooms.

Most hospitals across the country have repeatedly missed that target over the last year as record levels of demand, Covid, and staffing shortages have crippled the service.

Chairman of the CCG Dr Jason Broch said Leeds’ A&E performance was fairly “standard”, compared to other areas.

He said there were “nuances” behind the targets hospitals are supposed to meet, but that Leeds had outperformed places such as Bristol and Nottingham.

Speaking at a meeting of local health professionals, he said: “We’ve had a really hard winter.

“We always say we’ve had a hard winter in the NHS, but this year has felt additionally hard because of this increased demand and people describe it as a winter like no other.

“There’s increased demand, record levels of people at A&E. Every setting is consistently at or above capacity.”

He added: “That has an impact, especially at a time where because of increased infection rates a lot of staff have been off.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen, in my time working in the system, so many people off at the same time.”