Northern Irish A&Es with the worst extreme waiting times revealed in latest ‘grim’ batch of data

The latest waiting time statistics are out for Northern Ireland’s NHS, showing that 7,508 patients were left waiting over 12 hours in an emergency ward during December.
By Adam Kula
Published 11th Feb 2022, 16:13 BST
The percentage of patients in each NI A&E who were left waiting 12 hours or more during DecemberThe percentage of patients in each NI A&E who were left waiting 12 hours or more during December
The percentage of patients in each NI A&E who were left waiting 12 hours or more during December

The government’s objective for having patients either treaated and admitted, or discharged home, is that nobody should ever have to wait longer than 12 hours for these things to happen.

The fresh batch of waiting time statistics cover A&Es (or emergency departments, as they are now properly known).

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The figure of 7,508 represents 12.8% of all A&E patients seen in Northern Ireland during the month of December 2021.

Here, the News Letter has broken down the results by individual hospital.

Whilst seven hospitals had nobody (or virtually nobody) waiting 12 hours, the worst offender was Craigavon Area Hospital, where almost a fifth of its patients had to wait that long.

And comparing the 12-hour waiting time target to December 2020 reveals that the situation has worsened: back then, the overall proportion of A&E patients waiting that long was 11.4%.

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The median time that patients who were discharged home spent in a Type 1 A&E in December 2021 was three hours 30 minutes – 38 minutes more than the same month a year earlier.

The median time patients who were admitted to hospital spent in a Type 1 A&E in December 21 was 11 hours 4 minutes – 1 hour 5 minutes more than the same month a year earlier.

Belfast Mater, RVH, RBHSC, Antrim Area, Causeway, Ulster, Craigavon, Daisy Hill, Altnagelvin and South West Acute are all Type 1s, meaning they are major A&E wards that operate 24 hours.

It should be noted that the poor results are likely to reflect the fact that there was a huge surge in attendenaces at A&E during December 2021, compared to the same month in 2020 – a leap of 30.8% to be exact.

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SDLP health spokesperson Colin McGrath said of these latest figures that they “make for grim reading”.

“But the worst part of this is that none of it is surprising,” he said.

“ People expect worse waiting times. They expect poorer health outcomes.

“They’re becoming used to seeing queues of ambulances outside emergency departments.

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“It is a symptom of 15 years of failure to address a huge problem in a critical frontline service.

“While I understand the Omicron variant caused increased pressures, this still doesn’t explain how one year on from the height of the pandemic things have only deteriorated further.”

More from this reporter:

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Click here – RUC ‘collusive’ findings: WATCH as DUP man denounces IRA while speaker Alex Maskey tries to rein him in for ‘going off-topic’

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Related topics:NHS