Drop in visitors to Shropshire A&Es but emergency departments are 'extremely busy', hospital bosses say
Fewer patients visited A&E at Shropshire's major hospitals last month and attendances were lower than in October last year – but bosses say they are still 'extremely busy'.
New figures from NHS England show 9,398 patients visited A&E at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Telford's Princess Royal Hospital in October.
It was a drop of four per cent on the 9,742 visits recorded during September, and 24 per cent lower than the 12,399 patients seen in October the previous year.
The majority of attendances last month were via major A&E departments – those with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care – while five per cent were via minor injury units.
Hospital bosses say the county's A&Es departments are back to seeing the same level of attendance as they did before the start of the pandemic, with the added complication of needing to implement social distancing and other measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Last week the hospitals saw more than 2,000 people in its A&Es – the equivalent of almost 300 a day, or 12 an hour, every hour.
Dr Arne Rose, medical director at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs PRH and RSH, said: "Our A&E departments are extremely busy so one of the things I'd really want to hit home for people out there is if you have an urgent issue you need to consider whether self-care, local pharmacies, GPs or NHS 111 is the right option before you come to A&E because we are obviously trying to reduce any unnecessary contact with patients and therefore you need to consider whether you need to come in.
"It is a trying time for our staff, and it is also a trying time for our patients.
"I want to thank everybody at the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal Hospitals for their unwavering commitment and I want to thank our patients for their understanding and their generosity as we continue to deal with a situation that none of us have ever faced before."
Across England, A&E departments received 1.6 million visits last month.
That was a decrease of six per cent compared to September, and 26 per cent fewer than the 2.2 million seen during October 2019.
The NHS said the drop in attendances nationally is "likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response".
At Shropshire's two A&E departments, 70 per cent of arrivals were seen within four hours, against an NHS target of 95 per cent, in October.
There were 1,044 patients who waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit and of those, 13 were delayed by more than 12 hours.
