Hospitals fail to hit national A&E targets

Eighty-eight per cent of A&E patients were admitted or discharged within four hours at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal in June.

Hospitals are expected to see 95 per cent of patients within four hours of their A&E attendance.

Health officials say both hospitals are still operating at winter levels at a time when things should be recovering before the next high activity period.

Peter Herring, chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, told a board meeting that in June, 88.25 per cent of patients were admitted or discharged within the four-hour quality target.

He said: "This was below the current trajectory for June and continues to show under performance against the 95 per cent target and is five per cent below performance in 2014/15.

"However, this does show a continued improvement and signs of recovery into July.

"Under performance is due to an increase in trust emergency attendances. Attendances were 3.66 per cent higher compared to the same period in 2014/15.

"Also there is a significant variation in presentation of these attendances, in particular into the late evening when there are less senior decision makers on duty leading to an increase in non-admitted breaches.

"There are also an insufficient number of cubicles and staff in the emergency department to manage this increased demand."

Debbie Kadum, chief operating officer at the trust, said there was a need for more cubicles in both emergency departments.

She said: "We need to create more cubicles. Some patients are waiting a couple of hours before they are getting into a cubicle. There are more surges out of hours at the moment."

Mr Herring added: "While actions are being taken by the Clinical Commissioning Groups, Shropshire Community Trust and the local authorities, this is not impacting on the total number of patients who remain on the Fit To Transfer list on a daily basis.

"The Fit to Transfer list is a list of patients who are deemed medically fit enough to leave to the hospital but require ongoing care in another setting, or an assessment to determine what ongoing care may be required.

"The target agreed to have no more than 45 patients on the list by June 26 was not met and the average weekly figure for June was 97."