One in four patients wait more than four hours at Walsall Manor A&E
One in four patients waited more than four hours in A&E accident and emergency at Walsall Manor Hospital as Government targets were missed again earlier this month.
Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust was recently fined more than £360,000 by Walsall Clinical Commissioning Group for failing to reach the national of seeing 95 per cent of people within four hours from April to October.
Figures released by NHS England revealed that the Trust dipped as low as 83.3 per cent during the space of one week last month and the highest weekly figure for November reached just 90.8 per cent.
But for the week ending December 14, the figure dropped to 74.5 per cent and the previous week the Trust hit 90.7 per cent.
The Manor has been faced with more patients as a result of the night time closure of Stafford Hospital's A&E.
Ian Baines, director of finance and performance at the Trust, said: "We have had an extremely busy year with an increased number of people attending Manor Hospital, including patients from Staffordshire who are now coming to Walsall for treatment, and along with other acute trusts in the country we are experiencing a very high number of emergency admissions.
"Unfortunately, this does impact on our capacity and this means some patients are not seen as quickly as they should.
"We are disappointed whenever we are unable to meet the target of 95 per cent of patients attending our emergency department being seen within four hours."
He said community services, including the rapid response team, were working hard to help patients avoid being unnecessarily admitted to hospital.
Chiefs at the hospital have been told to reduce emergency admissions by 3.2 per cent as part of £24m funding plans.
