Hospital A&E waiting time report is troubling

The figure, for the first week in December, is actually worse than it was the previous month, while the number of ambulances being forced to wait for more than half an hour before they drop a patient off has also risen.

The hospital has tried to play down the figures, saying that it improved during the latter part of the month, but people are still entitled to ask why so many people are having to wait so long for attention.

All the more concerning is the fact that the hospital is still missing its targets despite a £2.5 million action plan, which has seen 30 extra nurses and six consultants taken on to avoid a repeat of the problems which the hospital suffered last year. New Cross also added an extra 10 beds to its A&E unit last year, but still people are being forced to wait.

The changes to GP contracts which happened under the previous government have a lot to answer for. Many of the record number of patients who have come through the doors of New Cross over the last year could have been dealt with by the GP, but ended up at A&E because they found it difficult to get an appointment.

However, the other problem is surely the continued fall-out from the Stafford Hospital crisis.

Tim Loughton, chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust which runs New Cross, says last week's recommendation that it should take over Cannock Chase District Hospital will be beneficial for all concerned, allowing an extra £50m to be ploughed into the two hospitals. We can only hope he is right, and if so, all parties need to move quickly so that the benefits can be felt as a matter of urgency.

However, last week's report did nothing to address the problems created by the continued night-time closure of the A&E department at Stafford, which has led to an influx of extra patients at New Cross and Walsall Manor Hospitals.

Would not some of this £50m have been better used towards trying to get the A&E unit at Stafford functioning properly once more? While the extra capacity at Cannock might mean that fewer operations will be cancelled, this is scant consolation for people being forced to wait for hours on end in the emergency unit.

Winter is a notoriously difficult period for our hospitals at the best of times. But given the extra pressures placed on them by the continued problems in Stafford, it is little wonder that many of our A&E units are bursting at the seams.

It is a problem that needs to be tackled fast.