Leeds A&E departments miss target by almost 20 per cent as leading medic warns of ‘chronic crisis’

Taj Hassan, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, warned of a risk of harm to patients after national figures showed the longest waiting times since 2004.

Major A&E departments in Leeds saw 75.2 per cent of patients within four hours last month, against a 95 per cent target.

Nationally, 76.1 per cent of patients were treated, discharged or admitted within four hours at “type 1” A&E departments, those offering 24-7 consultant-led care, according to figures released by NHS England.

The figure for all A&Es, including urgent treatment centres, was 84.4 per cent nationally and 79.5 per cent for Leeds. Dr Hassan, a consultant at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said: “Sadly the situation afflicting our emergency departments has become seemingly normalised with a chronic crisis mode that does not allow staff to deliver the quality of care they would wish and patients should 
rightly expect. The evidence on resultant crowding in departments is clear – it adds to the risk of harm to patients leading to excess deaths and disability.”

Dawn Marshall, Interim Chief Nurse at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, said demand services had been rising.

She said: “Despite the challenges that this presents, staff are going above and beyond to ensure our patients continue to receive safe and compassionate care. We would like to say thank you to all of our teams for their continued dedication and hard work.”

NHS England said thousands more people were treated in A&E within four hours because the total number of attendances has increased. An average 2,440 more people a day were seen within four hours in January 2019 compared with the same month in 2018 – an increase of 4.4 per cent.