Official figures on emergency room waiting times mask long delays for the sickest patients, previously unpublished data shows.
More than two in three people admitted urgently to hospital wait more than four hours to be admitted to a ward, new NHS statistics show.
Meanwhile, people with less serious conditions are treated and discharged quickly, which has the effect of improving a hospital’s overall performance indicators.
This is because NHS England only routinely publishes a combined figure for patients admitted or discharged, rather than figures for each of them.
Emergency departments should admit or discharge 95 percent of patients within four hours, although the target has been temporarily lowered to 76 percent and the national average is currently 70.2 percent.
More than two-thirds of patients wait more than four hours to be admitted to a ward, new NHS data shows (stock image)
However, new figures released by NHS England under Freedom of Information laws show that only 30 per cent of patients admitted to hospital in an emergency were admitted within this four-hour target.
In an extreme example, the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust reported that just 12 per cent of admitted patients spent four hours or less in A&E between April and June – one of the worst figures in the country.
This is despite the published data recording a relatively strong four-hour performance of 75.8 percent.
Medway Foundation Trust reported an overall figure of 76.8 per cent, but only 15.2 per cent for patients admitted to a ward, according to a Health Service Journal survey (must be retained).
Experts have raised concerns that NHS England’s interim target could distort priorities and disadvantage admitted patients.
Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said NHS England’s interim target of 76 per cent is “unambitious and leads to inequities in care”, and that “greater focus” is needed on patients who have to wait long for a bed in the emergency room.
He said most of these patients “are frail or elderly and have complex conditions.”
A&E data expert Steve Black warned that the 76 per cent target could be ‘too lax’ to deliver improvement for admitted patients.
He said: ‘If the four-hour performance standard is 95 per cent it is difficult to achieve without good performance for those admitted, but at 76 per cent this is not true.
‘What we need is an overall improvement for all patients, not just those discharged. That national target masks very poor performance for inpatients in some trusts.”
NHS England said trusts are facing ‘record demand, high bed occupancy and thousands of beds taken up every day by patients who no longer need to be there, partly due to pressures in social care’.
A spokeswoman added that A&E patients ‘are observed and cared for by doctors before being admitted to a ward’.
Epsom and St Helier Trust said it had record numbers of visitors to A&E between April and June and had more beds blocked due to delayed discharges. The company is conducting improvement work around emergency care performance, it added.