Shropshire’s two main hospitals are still dealing with a high number of emergency admissions and having to cancel routine operations.

And the A&E departments at the Royal Shrewsbury and Telford’s Princess Royal have again failed to hit the key four-hour target.

The hospitals were hit by a huge rise in admissions of elderly and very young patients suffering from respiratory problems towards the end of last year.

Later the sites were struck by the winter vomiting bug.

A spokesman for the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust said today: “We are continuing to experience the problems we have throughout the winter.”

The continuing pressure on the hospitals, which has led to the opening of more than 50 additional beds across the two sites,is highlighted in a performance report being presented to the trust board on Thursday.

The national target is that 98 per cent of patients must be admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours of registering at A&E.

The February figure for the trust was 96.2 per cent.

Over the past 13 months the target has been reached just four times – in June, July, August, and October.

The report says the trust continues to experience a “high demand” for beds which has been the case for the last 15 weeks.

It says: “The trust has maintained the opening of in excess of 50 additional beds and still continues to cancel elective operations.”

It adds: “The trust has continued to see high numbers of ambulance attendances at the PRH site and continues to experience a 25 per cent conversion from A&E attendance to admission.”