THE ‘sheer volume’ of pressure on accident and emergency departments across North Cumbria is preventing improvement, according to the North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust (NCIC).

Nearly two-thirds of people who arrived at A&E at NCIC over last month were seen within four hours, new figures show.

The NHS standard is for 95 per cent of patients to be seen within four hours. However, as part of a recovery plan, the health service has an objective for 78 per cent of patients to be seen within this time frame in March 2025.

The previous recovery target was for 76 per cent of patients to be seen within four hours by March this year, which was missed across England.

Recent NHS England figures show there were 11,967 visits to A&E NCIC in May.

Of them, 7,634 were seen within four hours – accounting for 64 per cent of arrivals.

Across England, 74 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, a slight fall from the month before.

At NCIC, 1,393 patients waited longer than four hours, including 592 who were delayed by more than 12 hours.

The overall number of attendances to A&E at NCIC in May was a rise of 11 per cent on the 10,733 visits recorded during April, and 2 per cent more than the 11,728 patients seen in May 2023.

A spokesperson for NCIC said: “We are sorry to see that, in the main, our figures got worse from the month before.

“The sheer volume of pressure on A&E is making improvements difficult, this coupled with an increase in delayed discharges is making flow through the hospital very difficult.

“We continue to work with our partners in health and social care to address this.”