Shropshire hospitals missing A&E waiting time targets
Nearly 600 people waited between four and 12 hours to be treated at A&E at Shropshire's two main hospitals in August, figures have revealed.
The government sets targets for every hospital in the country to see 95 per cent of patients in less than four hours.
In August only 82.2 per cent of patients at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital were dealt with in the time period, according to figures set to be presented to the board of the hospitals this afternoon.
The figure is 4.8 per cent less than in July, when 87 per cent met the gold standard.
The figures also show 599 patients waited between four and 12 hours in A&E in the two hospitals in August, compared to 342 the previous month. Graphs submitted with the board papers indicate health bosses think the problem is going to get worse rather than better, with a prediction that only just more than 70 per cent of patients will be seen in four hours or less by March next year.
Shropshire ambulance warning
It comes after health bosses warned the ambulance service covering Shropshire could "sink" this winter if nothing is done to improve handover times at the county's hospitals. Data presented to Shropshire Council's Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee revealed West Midlands Ambulance Service crews spent more than 350 hours waiting to transfer patients into the care of the county's A&E departments in August.
Paramedics were left waiting with patients in their ambulances for 237.5 hours at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital last month, with crews in Telford spending a total of 127.6 hours waiting before their patients were transferred, preventing them from responding to emergencies.
The statistics led to Sara Biffen, deputy chief operating officer at Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust, to reveal that she was looking to have more nurses working on hospital corridors to release paramedics more quickly.
Ambulance staff are not allowed to leave their patients at A&E unless they have been formally handed over to hospital medics.
The trust says it aims to have a corridor nurse on duty every day but this has been difficult because of staff shortages., a situation that the trust aims to rectify,
Pictures released in March this year showed eight ambulances queueing outside the PRH, along with crowded corridors as staff struggled to cope with the influx of patients.
People attending A&E departments are assessed by a triage nurse before then normally being asked to wait for treatment.
