Long waits as Wigan's busy A&E unit only sees half of patients in four-hour target time

The NHS target is for 95 per cent of arrivals to be admitted, transferred or discharged within that time.

But hospitals across the country have struggled to meet that for several years, with waits growing as the NHS tries to deal with the backlog of patients from the coronavirus pandemic.

Across the country, 71 per cent of patients were seen within four hours at A&Es last month – the joint-worst performance on record.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) saw 67.8 per cent of people in that time in September, according to new data from NHS England.

But just 50 per cent were seen in four hours at Wigan Infirmary’s A&E department, with the trust’s performance bolstered by 99.2 per cent of people being seen on time at Leigh Walk-In Centre.

Fewer patients visited the trust’s casualty departments last month – and attendances were lower than over the same period last year.

There were a total of 12,141 patients – 7,754 at A&E and 4,387 at the walk-in centre – a drop of three per cent on the 12,519 visits recorded during August, and nine per cent lower than the 13,374 patients seen in September 2021.

Across England A&E departments received 2 million visits last month – up by less than one per cent compared to August, but six per cent fewer than the 2.1m seen during September 2021.

After being seen, 2,616 emergency admissions were made to Wigan’s hospitals, with most of them (2,103) made via A&E.

But after the decision to admit was made, 1,172 patients – 10 per cent – waited more than four hours for a bed, while 131 waited more than 12 hours.

Mary Fleming, WWL’s deputy chief executive, said: “Our staff are working incredibly hard to provide care and treatment to patients as quickly as possible, particularly those with life-threatening conditions and I would like to thank them, and the public of Wigan for their continued support.

“Increasingly, we are seeing patients come to our hospitals who are very sick with a number of serious underlying health conditions. Patients who are very poorly take longer to recover in hospital and, even after they have recovered clinically, they also have a number of rehabilitation and reablement needs for them to be discharged appropriately.

“We are undertaking a number of measures to try to improve the situation and return to our pre-pandemic performance, which was amongst the best in Greater Manchester. This includes putting additional resources within our frontline to support staff caring for patients.

“Our clinical and community colleagues are working together in partnership with our primary care associates across the Wigan borough health system to improve the processes with recovery and discharge, looking to better understand our patient population and their needs. This also includes looking at how to better provide care in the community while recognising that primary care systems are also under pressure.

“Other examples of how we are trying to alleviate pressures includes our virtual ward initiative which allow patients to be treated safely at home and the introduction of patient streaming at the front door of our emergency department.”