More than two in five A&E patients wait longer than four hours at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust

More than two in five patients seeking A&E care at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals 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 Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust fell well behind that target in November, when just 56% of the 15,491 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 44% of patients attending major A&E at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals Trust waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, compared to 45% in October, and 40% in November 2021.

Including the 12,305 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 72% of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in November.

At Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust:

In November:

There were 1,036 booked appointments, down from 1,152 in October

1,876 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – 7% of patients

Of those, 106 were delayed by more than 12 hours

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in October:

The median time to treatment was 69.5 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times

Around 4% of patients left before being treated