It has been reported that hundreds of patients were left waiting on trolleys for more than four hours in the Accident and Emergency department at the Leicester Royal Infirmary over the weekend from 7th to the 9th of February.
The delays have resulted in managers at the hospital issuing an apology.
The target for A&E waiting times is set by the Government at 4 hours. Over the Friday to Sunday of this particular weekend, 322 people had to wait more than four hours. On the Sunday alone, 142 people waited more than four hours.
The delays in the department meant that a knock-on effect was caused to ambulances arriving at the hospital. The target time for ambulances to hand-over patients is 15 minutes but the delays meant that the average time it took over this weekend was between 20 and 28 minutes.
The Chief Operating Officer at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust was reported as saying “For the past 10 days we have been really busy, with higher numbers of very poorly patients being treated and needing to be admitted to a bed. Not every patient was seen in four hours and this is something we apologise for.”
There were 1,166 patients in A&E over the weekend which is an increase to the normal average of around 1,095 in the previous six weeks.
In January, the hospital ran two weekends in which extra staff were brought in to treat and discharge patients quicker. These weekends were referred to as “super weekends” and during these two weekends, almost all patients were seen within four hours.
The Chairman of the Leicester Mercury Patients’ Panel was reported as saying:
“There needs to be a radical change in the availability of GP surgeries in out-of-hours periods. The super weekends have shown waiting times can be reduced and patient care improved, but this can only be sustained if there is consistent funding.”
There is clearly no easy solution to the problems faced in A&E departments. Increased numbers of admittances to A&E has resulted in increased strain on an already busy department.
Evidently, hospitals are presently not equipped for such increased numbers of attendances in their A&E departments. However, such significant waiting times could result in risk to the health of patients and this is obviously unacceptable.
It seems that improved funding is required to tackle such problems but this could be very difficult to implement. It is important that this issue is given careful consideration by hospital Trusts as soon as possible
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