500 extra emergency attendances at Wigan casualty

NHS England data shows the performance of A&Es across the country in December, when temperatures plummeted and winter started to bite.

Bosses at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) have repeatedly reminded people to only go to A&E if their condition is limb, life or sight-threatening.

Even so, the trust had 12,914 emergency attendances throughout the month – up four per cent from 12,414 in November and up 1.3 per cent from 12,745 in December 2023.

That was made up of 7,302 attendances at Wigan Infirmary’s A&E unit and 5,612 at Leigh Urgent Treatment Centre.

The proportion of patients waiting more than four hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged rose in December.

Across the trust, 68.3 per cent of people were seen in that time, down from 68.6 per cent in November but up from 67.6 per cent in December 2023.

For A&E alone, the figure was 45.2 per cent, down from 46.7 per cent in November and 46.9 per cent in December 2023.

The urgent treatment centre saw 98.4 per cent of people within four hours.

Some 71.1 per cent of patients in England were seen within the target time in A&Es last month, down from 72.1 per cent in November.

Across the trust, there were 2,890 emergency admissions, the majority arriving through A&E.

But once the decision to admit was made, 1,663 patients had to wait more than four hours for a bed and 508 waited for more than 12 hours. That compared to 1,719 and 474 in November.

There were 54,207 people who had to wait more than 12 hours for a bed in A&Es in England in December, up from 45,791 in November.

The number waiting at least four hours also rose, standing at 154,689 in December, up from 140,782 in November.

Sarah Brennan, WWL’s chief operating officer, said: “There is always high demand throughout our hospital services during the winter months. This can be due to increases in flu, respiratory infections and other winter-related illnesses.

“I would like to thank all our WWL staff and our partners across the health and social care system for their continued hard work, commitment and dedication, ensuring our patients are safely treated in the right place, at the right time. These pressures are expected and WWL plans and prepares as much as possible.

“We recognise that sometimes patients experience longer waits in our emergency department and for this we apologise. We would like to assure you teams across WWL work hard every day to help to reduce these waits, ensuring that people are seen as safely and quickly as possible, in order of clinical priority.

“We would also encourage families to support your loved ones with their discharge from the hospital once they are ready and well to return to their place of residence, so that we can support patients who are accessing care in an emergency.

“The public can really help us by remembering that emergency departments should only be used for life, limb and sight-threatening illnesses and injuries.”