Posted: Fri 19th Aug 2022

New figures show Wrexham Maelor hospital records worst monthly A&E performance in Wales

News and Info from Deeside, Flintshire, North Wales
This article is old - Published: Friday, Aug 19th, 2022

Just over 33 per cent of people who attended the emergency department in Wrexham were seen within four hours in July, new figures have revealed.

The monthly publication of NHS performance statistics for Wales shows that of the 4,809 patients, 1,612 were seen within the target time.

This is a drop down from 45.4 per cent seen within four hours in June – when 4,690 people attended overall.

The above graph shows data since January 2018 to compare the overall total attendance and attendances where patients spend less than the target time in an emergency department.

The figures are the worst across North Wales and the whole of Wales for major emergency department stats, with Ysbyty Glan Clwyd at 47% and Ysbyty Gwynedd 56%.

For comparison across Wales; Bronglais General Hospital is 68%, Glangwili General Hospital 59%, Withybush Hospital 59%, Morriston Hospital 54%, Prince Charles Hospital 54%, Royal Glamorgan, 69% and Princess of Wales Hospital 55%, The Grange University Hospital 54%, and University Hospital of Wales 57%.

The most recent data locally shows 58.5 per cent of people were seen within eight hours and 73 per cent within 12 hours.

It shows the scale of the demand being faced by health staff across Wales caused by the coronavirus pandemic and worsening ailments and health for some in the population.

Yesterday Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board issued a plea for people to only visit the region’s emergency departments if necessary, urging people to contact 111 or their pharmacists for minor ailments.

The health board is seeing an unprecedented demand this month which is leading to long delays in patients being seen and a significant shortage in beds.

This is being caused by the sheer volume of people needing to be admitted and delays in discharging healthy patients.

The new stats also reveal the pressures being faced by the Welsh Ambulance Service, with 39,000 emergency calls made during July.

This is an average of 1,269 calls per day, an increase of 20 (1.6 per cent) calls on average per day than the previous month but 146 (10.3 per cent) fewer calls on average per day than the same month last year.

This was the fourteenth month in a row where on average there were more than 100 immediately life-threatening calls made each day and the highest on record since the change to call handling procedures in May 2019 which impacted on the comparability of the time series.

In July, 52.0% of emergency responses to immediately life threatening (red) calls arrived within 8 minutes. This was 1.2 percentage points higher than the previous month, but 5.8 percentage points lower than in July 2021.

The average (median) response time to immediately life-threatening ‘red’ calls was 7 minutes and 44 seconds.

However for amber calls the response time was just under 1 hour and 44 minutes.

The number of people waiting to start treatment has also continued to rise, with 732,000 on a patient pathway in June.

This is an increase from 722,147 in May.

The Welsh Government have said that “new management information suggests that in June 2022, when there were over 732,000 open patient pathways, there were around 576,000 individual patients on treatment waiting lists in Wales.”

However this still leaves more than half a million people in Wales waiting to start treatment.

Of those 400,961 have been waiting up to 26 weeks, 67,499 26 to 36 weeks and 263,781 over 36 weeks.

Commenting, Welsh Conservative and Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said: “It is incredibly dispiriting to see progress being made in other parts of the UK, but people in Wales are still suffering in a health system that is not working.

“This is because the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay adopted an attitude of complacency where they failed to plan for Covid recovery, leaving us in a position where patients and NHS staff are stuck playing catch-up.

“We’ve been saying for two years that we needed regional surgical hubs and rapid diagnostic centres to deal with this backlog, supported by our GP Access Plan launched in January but, as ever, Labour ignored sensible and workable calls.

“Labour need to get a grip on the NHS and stop breaking all the wrong records.”

A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “Almost 343,000 patient consultations were undertaken by the NHS in Wales in June across emergency department attendances, outpatient attendances and inpatient/daycase attendances.

“June also saw just over 88,000 patient pathways closed, a significant increase from the early stages of the pandemic and 4% higher than for the same month in 2021. The average waiting time for treatment also fell in the latest month, from 22.6 weeks to 21.6 weeks.

“Diagnostic services also saw people waiting less time to be seen than the previous month, with the average waiting time in June for diagnostic tests being 5.6 weeks, a decrease from 5.7 weeks in the previous month. With diagnostic services being one area benefiting from the £1bn invested in the post pandemic recovery. Those The number of pathways waiting longer than fourteen weeks for therapies also reduced in June.

“More cancer pathways were closed in June than the previous month following more patients being informed they did not have cancer. Performance also increased slightly against the 62 day target compared to May. Significant improvements have been seen in breast services over the last two months with new ways of working, including the introduction of weekend clinics and health boards supporting each other to see patients.

“There continues to be high demand for emergency care, with almost 92,000 attendances at Welsh emergency departments, and the highest level of demand on record for immediately life-threatening ambulance calls. Despite this, the majority of patients continue to receive timely access to the care they need with the average wait time for people to be seen shortening.

“We continue to invest in urgent and emergency care services. The Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care Programme, launched earlier this year is supported by a £25m annual budget, and we have recently announced an additional £3m to increase emergency ambulance capacity through the recruitment of between 100-150 additional frontline staff.

“Given the significant challenges the Welsh ambulance service has been experiencing, a national ambulance improvement plan has been agreed by NHS Wales chief executives to deliver a wide range of actions to support better management of 999 demand in the community, increased ambulance capacity, improved responsiveness to people with time sensitive complaints and ambulance patient handover.

” We have started to see improvement in ambulance patient handover performance in some areas, which will help to improve patient experience and outcomes, and free up ambulance capacity to respond to urgent calls in the community.”

We extracted the below data for the Maelor Hospital as below.

Date Total attendances Attendances where patients spend less than the target time in an emergency department
01/07/22 4809 1612
01/06/22 4690 2129
01/05/22 4885 2060
01/04/22 4593 1803
01/03/22 4818 2226
01/02/22 4157 1732
01/01/22 4324 2123
01/12/21 4316 1870
01/11/21 4580 2039
01/10/21 5006 2081
01/09/21 5208 2677
01/08/21 5091 2582
01/07/21 5524 2975
01/06/21 5734 3172
01/05/21 5590 3101
01/04/21 5225 3226
01/03/21 4764 2956
01/02/21 3847 2364
01/01/21 4005 2175
01/12/20 4146 2225
01/11/20 4143 2610
01/10/20 4464 2785
01/09/20 4806 3525
01/08/20 4428 3375
01/07/20 4747 3502
01/06/20 4436 3612
01/05/20 3941 3368
01/04/20 2854 2409
01/03/20 3978 2409
01/02/20 4870 1997
01/01/20 5006 2322
01/12/19 5199 2448
01/11/19 5147 2938
01/10/19 5198 2837
01/09/19 5150 2633
01/08/19 5374 2777
01/07/19 5688 3203
01/06/19 5227 2651
01/05/19 5448 2926
01/04/19 5210 2620
01/03/19 5308 2998
01/02/19 4910 2802
01/01/19 5459 2691
01/12/18 5078 2568
01/11/18 5126 2865
01/10/18 5397 2918
01/09/18 5032 2563
01/08/18 5190 2579
01/07/18 5630 3038
01/06/18 5550 3177
01/05/18 5646 3657
01/04/18 5158 3211
01/03/18 5196 2621
01/02/18 4884 2698
01/01/18 5139 3182

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