Improvements continue as more patients seen at Wigan's casualty departments within target time

According to data from NHS England, 71.4 per cent of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours by Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) in April.

This was up slightly from 71.2 per cent in March and was the best performance since 74.5 per cent in May 2022.

The figures cover both Wigan Infirmary’s A&E department and Leigh Urgent Treatment Centre during the first full month since new chief executive Mary Fleming took the helm at WWL.

At the A&E unit, 50.3 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, down slightly from 51.1 per cent in March, which was the highest figure since August 2022.

Meanwhile 99.4 per cent were seen at the urgent treatment centre, up from 99.1 per cent in March.

Across England, 74.4 per cent of patients were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, up from 74.2 per cent in March.

A total of 12,533 people sought emergency care at WWL during April – 7,150 at A&E and 5,383 at the urgent treatment centre – leading to 2,906 emergency admissions.

Once the decision to admit was made, 1,585 patients had to wait more than four hours for a bed, an improvement on 1,627 in March.

But 516 patients had to wait for 12 hours or more, up from 492 the month before.

Staff have been working to improve the flow of patients through the hospital and address any delays to discharges.

Nationwide, 42,078 people had to wait more than 12 hours in A&E departments in April from a decision to admit to actually being admitted, down slightly from 42,968 in March.

The number waiting at least four hours fell from 140,181 in March to 134,344 in April.

WWL’s interim chief operating officer Claire Wannell said: “The hard work and dedication from our staff across the healthcare system is translating into improvements in our emergency department and staff are working hard to see and treat patients within four hours wherever possible.

“Combined with lessons learnt from our MaDE (multi-agency discharge event) conducted with our system partners in March, this has allowed us to improve our performance against the national four-hour target. This has been further facilitated by improving our ability to safely discharge

patients back into the community.

“However, with patients attending the A&E with a number of clinical conditions, some are staying longer in the hospital to recover which impacts the overall availability of beds. This demand, unfortunately, results in longer (12-hour) delays in our A&E department.

“Clinicians will always prioritise those in most urgent need and WWL apologises to anyone who has experienced a significant wait for care. Our A&E should only be used for life-threatening illnesses and injuries and if you help in these situations, you must come forward. For conditions which are less urgent, please use NHS 111 or consider visiting a local pharmacy, urgent treatment centre or GP practice for support instead.”