Three in five people who arrived at accident and emergency at North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) 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 aims for 78 per cent of patients to be seen within this time frame by March 2025.

Recent NHS England figures show there were 11,102 visits to A&E at NCIC in September. Of them, 6,711 were seen within four hours – accounting for 60 per cent of arrivals.

Across England, 74 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, down from 76 per cent in August.

1,494 patients waited longer than four hours at A&E in North and West Cumbria including 747 who were delayed by more than 12 hours.

The NHS said accident and emergency departments experienced the busiest ever September with 2.2 million attendances, and 530,824 emergency admissions. This followed the busiest summer on record.

The overall number of attendances to A&E at NCIC in September was a rise of 3 per cent on the 10,822 visits recorded during August, and 2 per cent more than the 10,867 patients seen in September 2023.

A spokesperson for NCIC said: “Our waiting lists and waiting times continue to fall despite higher emergency attendances and admissions this year.

“In line with the national picture, we have already seen over 3,500 more attendances in our emergency departments than we had by this time last year.

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“September saw 9,142 patients attend our A&E departments, which is more than in August (8,806), and led to higher emergency admissions (3,024).

“Just over half (52.8 per cent) of patients were seen within the 4-hour standard at our A&E departments and 9 out 10 patients (96 per cent) were seen within four hours at our Urgent Treatment Centres.

“We encourage anyone who has an urgent condition that is not life-threatening to use our Urgent Treatment Centre’s in Penrith and Keswick.”