Patients wait up to three hours at A&E

Seriously sick and injured people are waiting longer to be seen and treated in accident and emergency departments across the Black Country and Staffordshire, it has emerged.

Figures obtained by the Express & Star show patients were spending as long as three hours in A&E in December 2010, compared to two hours in December 2008.

It comes after it was revealed last week that the number of patients in the West Midlands waiting more than six weeks for cancer tests has more than doubled in a year.

The worst-performing hospital in the region for A&E waiting times was Stafford Hospital, where patients could expect an average wait over the two years of almost two-and-a-half hours. The longest time was in December 2010, when it was three hours.

Second worst performer was the Dudley Group of Hospitals which had an average stay in A&E of just over two hours with the longest wait being two-and-a-half hours in December 2010, compared to just under two hours in December 2008.

Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital saw lengths of stay in A&E increase slightly from just under two hours in 2008 to just over two hours in the autumn of 2010 although the trust did not submit data for November and December last year.

It had an average over the two years of 111 minutes. Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust saw pat-ients spending just over an hour and a half in A&E in December 2008 compared to more than two hours in December 2010, with an average over the two years of 94 minutes.

There was a wait of two hours and 20 minutes at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Sandwell and City Hospital, compared to just under one hour and 40 minutes in April 2009. Figures were not available for December 2008.

Maggie Oldham, chief operating officer at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, apologised to patients who had a long wait at A&E in Stafford. She said: "We have now started making a number of changes which will mean that patients requiring admission can be admitted sooner."