Nearly half of A&E patients waited longer than four hours to be seen at Northampton General Hospital in November

Nearly half of patients attending major A&E at Northampton General Hospital waited longer than four hours to be dealt with last month, according to NHS England figures.

NHS targets state that 95 percent of patients attending accident and emergency should be admitted to hospital, transferred elsewhere or discharged within four hours. But NGH fell well short of that in November, when just 55 percent of the 9,172 type one A&E attendances were dealt with within four hours.

Type 1 departments are those which provide major emergency services – with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care – and account for the majority of attendances nationally. It means 45 percent of waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, compared to 34 percent in October, and 37 percent in November 2021. An NGH spokesman said the figures underline the extra demand for NHS services, adding: “We are seeing unprecedented numbers of attendances to our Emergency Department daily.

"Our teams are working incredibly hard to provide high quality care for all of our patients, seeing them as quickly as they can and always in priority order

“Please remember our Emergency Department is for life-threatening illnesses or injuries only. If your condition is not life threatening, please use other services for care. NHS 111 online or the phone line can help advise on the most appropriate place for care locally, including out of hours services.”

Delays in discharging patients to free up beds due to shortages in the adult care sector are also contributing to the gridlock in A&E at Northampton.

Including the 2,675 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 64 percent of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in November.

The 95 percent standard has not been met across the NHS in England since July 2015. Last month just 69 percent of A&E attendances were admitted transferred or discharged within four hours, compared to 74 percent in November 2021 and 84 percent two years ago.

Performance was worse in type one departments, where just 54 percent of patients were seen within the target time in November, down from 62 percent during the same month last year, and 77 percent two years earlier.

Also at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust, in November:

■ There were 73 booked appointments, down from 268 in October

■ 927 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – eight percent of patients Of those, 585 were delayed by more than 12 hours

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in October:

The median time to treatment was 126 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times Around five percent of patients left before being treated.

Paramedics, emergency care assistants, call handlers and other staff working for East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) will strike for 24 hours from 6am on December 21 and December 28 after ballots overwhelmingly backed the GMB’s call for action with one GMB union member revealing a third of ambulance workers think delays they’ve been involved with have led to the death of a patient..