Addenbrooke's Hospital: Patients spending ‘too long’ in A&E

The Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust board of directors meeting on March 8 heard that the hospital had cut ambulance handover wait times, but that people were still spending too long in the emergency department itself. 

A report presented to the meeting said in January 1,222 patients had an emergency department journey time of over 12 hours, 11.5 per cent of the total number of people who attended the department. 

Chief Operating Officer at CUH, Nicola Ayton, said: “On urgent and emergency care, we continue to really do well and maintain the progress we had made on our ability to transfer patients from ambulances to the emergency department in a timely way. 

“Over January we were one of the best performers regionally, and that was sustained in February when most ambulances were able to transfer and get back on the road in 15 minutes. 

“However, urgent and emergency care is a big area for improvement on overall journey times, the amount of time patients in the emergency department from arrival that remains too long, that is a big area of focus for us.” 

Chief Executive, Roland Sinker, said a group was overseeing actions to improve the amount of time people were waiting. 

He said: “The health and care system remains in a challenging period. Within those challenges there are multiple examples of fantastic care being provided but there are also areas of much greater challenge.  

“There are areas that have strong performance relative to peers, look at ambulance handover progress, waiting lists and access to cancer care, really strong performance looking after patients. 

“That is coming with significant challenges, we have long waits still being experienced in the emergency department.” 

He added: “It is clear there are still patients waiting far longer than we would like in either outpatient or elective procedure. A very mixed picture, it is important to stay grounded of where the picture is.”