More than a quarter of A&E patients wait longer than four hours at George Eliot Hospital

More than a quarter of patients seeking A&E care at the George Eliot Hospital waited longer than four hours to be dealt with last month, figures show.

NHS guidance states that 95% of patients attending accident and emergency departments should be admitted to hospital, transferred elsewhere or discharged within four hours.

But George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust fell well behind that target in November, when just 71% of the 6,548 attendances at type 1 A&E departments were dealt with within four hours, according to figures from NHS England.

Type 1 departments are those which provide major emergency services – with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care – and account for the majority of attendances nationally.

It means 29% of patients attending major A&E at the George Eliot Hospital waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, in line with 29% in October, and up from 26% in November 2021.

Including the 1,849 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 76% of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in November.

At George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust:

In November:

There were 715 booked appointments, down from 755 in October

486 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – 6% of patients

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in October:

The median time to treatment was 79 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times

Around 3% of patients left before being treated