Sheffield Teaching Hospitals: Nearly 600 people waited more than 12 hours in A&E at Northern General Hospital

A total of 8,255 people attended the A&E department at the hospital, run by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, during February this year. Of those, 585, which is 7.1 per cent, had to wait more than 12 hours before being admitted, transferred or discharged.

The figures were revealed as NHS England published data for the first time showing the number of people waiting more than 12 hours at A&E departments across the country. The statistics were for February and cover hospitals with major A&E departments, with the provisional data rounded to the nearest five attendances.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals was far from the worst of the bunch when it came to long waits in A&E. At Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, nearly a third (31.3%) of those attending A&E had to wait more than 1 hours.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals was 81st out of 120 trusts for which data was provided, based on the percentage of people attending A&E departments who had to wait more than 12 hours.

The data was published on Thursday, April 13, during the four-day strike by junior doctors over pay and working conditions, which began on Tuesday and is due to run until Saturday, April 15, at 7am. Ahead of the strike, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals urged people only to use A&E in an emergency, with long waits likely due to the shortage of staff available.

Michael Harper, chief operating officer at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, said: “Like most other NHS A&E departments we are very busy in emergency care and our teams are working incredibly hard to see people as quick as they can. On average we see between 350 - 400 patients every day and this continues to rise.

“We prioritise those patients in the most urgent need and around 7 out of every 10 patients are seen and a decision made to admit to hospital or treat and discharge within 4 hours. Our waiting time performance is slowly improving, and we have taken a number of measures to try and help the situation.

“This includes creating additional facilities to assess appropriate patients away from the main A&E, investing in more doctors and nurses and working with the ambulance service on different ways of handing over patients. We also have an onsite GP service and Minor Injuries Unit which patients can be directed to which helps A&E deal with the most urgent patients.

“We have a trust-wide programme focussed on discharge and the flow of patients out of A&E and through our wards, which has also included the development of our Same Day Emergency Care unit. We are very aware that some people are waiting longer than we would like and we will continue to do all we can to keep waiting times as low as possible during these very busy times.

“We would ask patients with minor injuries and illnesses to consider using the other care options in the city rather than A&E because their wait time is likely to be shorter and it leaves our emergency teams free to treat the sickest people. Details can be found at www.sheffieldurgentcare.co.uk.”