12-hour A&E waits almost doubled in year before lockdown

The latest annual figures, which cover the 12 months up to March 31 this year and are therefore largely unaffected by the coronavirus lockdown restrictions, show that a shocking 45,401 patients spent more than 12 hours at A&Es in Northern Ireland hospitals.

That is from a total of 814,273 attendances at emergency departments last year, and represents more than one in every 20 patients, or 5.5%.

During the previous 12 months, from April 2018 to March 2019, a total of 25,326 patients had to spend at least 12 hours waiting for treatment.

But the deterioration in emergency care waiting times in Northern Ireland is even more stark when compared with the figures from five years ago.

The number of people waiting 12 hours or more in 2015/16 stood at 3,875 — less than a tenth of the 45,401 who had to wait such a long time at emergency departments last year.

The performance of emergency departments in Northern Ireland is assessed using two key waiting time measures — the number of people treated within four hours and the number of people forced to wait more than 12.

Performance against the four-hour target has also declined significantly.

More than a third (34.9%) of patients had to wait more than four hours last year, compared to 30.1% the year before and 23.9% five years ago.