More than two in five A&E patients wait longer than four hours at North Bristol Trust

More than two in five patients seeking A&E care at the North Bristol Trust waited longer than four hours to be dealt with last month, figures show.

NHS guidance states that 95% of patients attending accident and emergency departments should be admitted to hospital, transferred elsewhere or discharged within four hours.

But North Bristol NHS Trust fell well behind that target in November, when just 58% of the 8,228 attendances at type 1 A&E departments were dealt with within four hours, according to figures from NHS England.

Type 1 departments are those which provide major emergency services – with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care – and account for the majority of attendances nationally.

It means 42% of patients attending major A&E at the North Bristol Trust waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, compared to 43% in October, and 40% in November 2021.

At North Bristol NHS Trust:

In November:

There were 200 booked appointments, up from 180 in October

1,082 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – 13% of patients

Of those, 433 were delayed by more than 12 hours

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in October:

The median time to treatment was 165 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times

Around 12% of patients left before being treated