Patient forced to wait more than an hour and a half at Walsall Manor A&E with chest pains

Walsall Healthwatch has called for improvements in the emergency department at Walsall Manor Hospital after being alarmed by a patient survey.

Patients concerns were mainly linked to long waiting times for treatment, bed blocking and poor quality of care due to a shortage of A&E staff.

Waiting times at the A&E department have been below the Government target since May 2015.

A report in Walsall's upcoming Health and Wellbeing Board said: "There was one example of a person saying they had been waiting for one and half hours with chest pains to see the doctor. It was clear this person did not understand why they were waiting and at first glance people may consider this a cardiac issue as people are always told to seek attention if they have chest pains. This may well have been a challenging wait for this particular patient.

"If initial waiting times are increased those waiting should be checked to see if their symptoms have got worse or changed so as to address the issue of one person waiting one and a half hour with chest pains."

The report found most people have a 'reasonable experience' in A&E.

But it found there were areas for improvement.

One of them was that patients should be routinely asked if they are in pain and need pain relief.

Another was addressing concerns that patients are not told how long they will have to wait in A&E.

Waiting times at A&E are below the Government's target, which says 95 per cent of patients should be seen in under four hours.

The latest figures showed 85 per cent of visitors are seen on time.