10,000 more people attended A&E or urgent treatment centres in the North East in May than a year ago - meaning more people went to hospital than during any May since 2016 - the first time the data was collected on a monthly basis.
The Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust alone saw 22,200 people through the doors of A&E at the RVI and its non-emergency treatment clinics around the city. That's almost 2,500 more than in April - and the highest figure seen since October last year when winter pressures were combining with Covid to put huge strain on our NHS.
More than 3,000 patients then waited more than four hours to be admitted to hospital, with 59 (53 at County Durham and Darlington's hospitals) having to wait on trolleys for more than 12 hours.
Across the five North East NHS acute hospital trusts, a total of 95,239 people attended A&E or urgent care. That's higher than any May since 2016 - though due to mergers and changes in service provision, it is hard to directly compare the figures. A year ago in May 2021, a staggering 10,000 less people - 85,179 - attended hospital for urgent or emergency care.
During the early stages of the pandemic, May 2020 saw just 52,642 people go to hospital, while the last May before Covid hit - 2019 - still saw fewer people queueing up in A&E. There were 93,899 patients across the region.
Each of the five trusts also saw an increase in attendance compared to April, with rises of almost 2,000 at County Durham and Darlington, just under 1,000 in Gateshead. There were also almost 2,000 more urgent or emergency care patients at Northumbria Healthcare, though he South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Trust just saw a marginal increase.
At least 95% of patients attending A&E should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, but this has not been met nationally since 2015 - and only Northumbria Healthcare in our region currently come close - with 91.8%. NHS execs have in recent months spoken extensively about how an inability to discharge patients at the end of their hospital stays - because of a lack of capacity in social care - was leading to problems with "patient flow" and difficulties finding beds for patients coming in via A&E.
A report from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch has said "patients were coming to harm" due to ambulance handover delays and "delayed discharges" leaving them in hospital longer than necessary. Neil Alexander, lead investigator, said: "As our investigation progresses, we continue to hear about the deep anxiety and distress that delays in handing over care can cause.
"It is one of the most urgent issues facing healthcare, and sadly in the most serious of cases has resulted in deaths of patients who couldn’t access the treatment they needed in time." NHS bosses in our region said they welcomed the report and were working on solving the issues raised.
This comes as the pressures on hospital beds cause a "knock-on" effect around the country and leave ambulances waiting outside of hospitals. So-called ambulance handover delays have a subsequent impact on response times. However, though handover delays remain an issue in the North East, the issue is less acute than in other areas and ambulance response times for the most serious calls are the second best in the country. At an average of seven minutes and 22 seconds, the North East Ambulance Service performs only slightly outside of the target standard.
But during May, for cases of category two (C2) - "a serious condition, such as stroke or chest pain" - and category three (C3) - "an urgent problem" - calls NEAS' performance is facing more challenges. On average, C2 calls took 38 minutes 52 seconds for a response, with C3 taking two hours four minutes and 48 seconds. Both of these figures are marginally above the national average.
Chair of the urgent and emergency care network for the North East and North Cumbria, Helen Ray, said: "We never underestimate the personal impact waiting for care and treatment has on our patients and their loved ones and we want to do all we can to improve response times for all of our patients.
"While we are performing above the England average for waiting times across urgent care, thanks to the hard work of all our staff in the region, there is still more to do to reduce the time people are waiting."
Ms Ray - who is also chief exec of the under-fire NEAS - added the NHS across the region was "absolutely committed" to working across health and social care to improve the situation and reduce delays for patients. NHS bosses said the North East and North Cumbria had seen a 9% rise in A&E attendance, but that the region was still performing above average.
Ms Ray added: "Initiatives include making changes to the way patients are clinically assessed and admitted, improving discharges from hospital, greater collaborations with pharmacies and a region wide improvement plan to address handover delays. The support of the public is also welcome and they can continue to help us by keeping 999 and A&E free for life threatening conditions and thinking pharmacy, GP and 111 first for other assessments."
READ NEXT:
