Nearly half the patients attending type one A&E departments at the North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust (NCIC) 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 NCIC fell well behind that target in December, when just 53% of the 9,297 attendances at type 1 A&E departments were dealt with within four hours, according to figures from NHS England.

It means 47% of patients attending major A&E at the NCIC waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, compared to 41% in November, and 33% in December 2021.

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.

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Including the 2,224 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 61% of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in December.

The 95% standard has not been met across the NHS in England since July 2015 – and last month, just 65% of A&E attendances were admitted transferred or discharged within four hours, marking the worst performance on record.

This compared to 73% in December 2021 and 80% in December 2020.

Performance was worse in type 1 departments, where just 50% of patients were seen within the target time in December, down from 61% during the same month last year, and 72% two years earlier.

Dr Adrian Clements, Executive Medical Director at NCIC, said: “Like all parts of the NHS, we are currently under considerable pressure in north Cumbria.

“Patients in our emergency departments are experiencing long waits to be admitted due to a shortage of available beds in our hospitals and community settings.

“This shortage is largely due to the challenges we face in discharging patients who no longer require medical treatment.

“Pressures in social care mean this often cannot be done in a timely way. As a result, we can have up to 200 patients at any one time in our hospital beds who are fit to be discharged but can’t go home safely.

“We are doing everything within our power to keep patients safe in our emergency department and to alleviate these pressures by working with the local authority to look at initiatives such as opening more beds in residential care homes and developing a single joint recruitment arrangement.

“We are enormously grateful to our hard-working staff who are doing their very best to provide safe, high-quality care in the most challenging circumstances.”

 

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