Wait continues for patients at Wigan's busy casualty departments

While the NHS is traditionally quieter during the summer months, the demand for care continues at Wigan’s hospitals as staff try to catch up with the backlog caused by the coronavirus pandemic and see patients who delayed seeking treatment.

Data from NHS England shows 14,014 people want to Wigan Infirmary’s A&E department and Leigh Walk-In Centre in June, exactly 100 less than the month before.

But only 53.5 per cent of patients at A&E were seen within four hours last month – down from 59.5 per cent in May and below the national performance of 58.8 per cent in June.

This figure rose to 71.1 per cent for the trust overall – compared to 72.1 per cent nationally – as 99.8 per cent of patients at the walk-in centre were seen within the target time.

There were 3,168 emergency admissions, most coming via A&E, but 1,104 patients had to wait more than four hours for a bed and 91 waited more than 12 hours.

These long waits for a bed have been an issue at Wigan’s hospitals for some time, with very high bed occupancy rates delaying the transfer of patients from A&E.

Emergency services remain under high levels of pressure nationally, with 2.18m A&E attendances in England, making it the busiest ever June for NHS emergency departments, and the second month in a row staff were contending with record urgent care numbers.