Patients urged to think before visiting King's Mill A&E

Newly published figures reveal 87 per cent of the 14,553 patients who visited King’s Mill Hospital’s accident and emergency department in December were seen within the four-hour benchmark – the national average was 79.8 per cent, against a 95 per cent target.

Simon Barton, chief operating officer at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, (SFH) which runs King’s Mill, said the trust’s figures were among the best in the country.

The figures show that nationally, nearly 100,000 patients waited more than four hours for a bed to be found after a decision to admit them in December, with more than 2,300 patients waiting more than 12 hours.

At King’s Mill, 275 patients waited more than four hours and four waited more than 12 hours – down from 281 and 17 respectively in November.

Mr Barton said: “SFH has put a robust winter plan in place this year, which provide more beds and staff into wards and emergency departments to support growing emergency demand with the objective of ensuring our patients get safely, timely access to care.

“Furthermore, across our local area our partner organisations and primary care have put in more capacity including doctors, nurses and social workers.

“In December, the trust was ranked as seventh in the NHS for the four-hour wait target, with 87.1 per cent of patients being admitted or discharged within four hours.

“December has been a very busy month, with an unprecedented amount of patients coming to our emergency department and a rise in how poorly those patients were, but with the dedication, resilience and flexibility of our staff and our system partners, we are working hard to make sure our patients are kept safe and aren’t delayed.

“We continue to urge patients to use all available alternatives – GP, pharmacy, urgent care centres and Primary Care 24 – to the emergency department where possible, leaving the ED able to treat the very sickest patients in a timely way.”