Drop in visits to A&E at Sutton’s King’s Mill Hospital

NHS England figures show 14,149 patients visited the emergency departments at Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs King’s Mill, in January.

That was a drop of 17 per cent on the 16,965 visits recorded during December, but 8 per cent more than the 13,144 patients seen in January 2022.

Health think tank the King’s Fund said it has been a tough start to the year for the NHS, and current figures show services “are not out of the woods yet”.

Danielle Jefferies, policy analyst, said: “The unfortunate reality is the road to recovery for the health and care system is long, with growing financial pressures, staffing shortages, and an NHS in crisis, all amounting to waiting lists being miles off where they should be under national targets.”

The figures show attendances were above the levels seen two years ago – in January 2021, there were 9,302 visits to SFH A&E departments.

The majority of attendances last month were at the major A&E departments at King’s Mill, with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care, while 35 per cent were via Newark Urgent Care Centre

Across England, A&E departments received 2 million visits last month.

That was a decrease of 14 per cent compared with December, but 5 per cent more than the 1.9m seen during January 2022.

Welcome improvement

Jessica Morris, fellow at the Nuffield Trust, said: "January saw a welcome improvement in A&E and ambulance waiting times, but this reflects just how difficult December was for health and care services rather than a more significant bounce-back in NHS performance.

“Urgent and emergency care was hit at all sides by the early and harsh flu season, ongoing Covid pressures, cold weather and industrial action.

“It is good to see things moving in the right direction again, but we aren’t through winter yet and we should not underestimate how much pressure NHS staff remain under.”

Prof Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England national medical director, said: “Today’s figures show that despite ongoing pressures across the health service, including industrial action, NHS staff are continuing to work flat out to deliver the best care for patients, with ambulance response times improving last month as the NHS continued to progress on its winter plan.”

SFH in January

There were 150 booked appointments, down from 152 in December; 73 per cent of arrivals were seen within four hours, against an NHS target of 95 per cent; 1,184 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – 8 per cent of patients Of those, 289 were delayed by more than 12 hours.

SFH in December

The median time to treatment was 17 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times; About 6 per cent of patients left before being treated.