21 hour wait to be seen in casualty department

Some hospital patients are waiting almost a day to be seen and treated in accident and emergency departments in the Black Country and Staffordshire.

In one case, an emergency patient at Walsall Manor waited more than 21 hours to be initially seen or assessed for the first time. The Government says this should be done in 20 minutes.

Stafford Hospital's longest wait in A&E was more than 20 hours, with one patient waiting longer than 18 hours.

Walsall Manor also had a patient waiting longer than 13 hours in the department, according to NHS data for April. The hospital today said it believed there was an error in the way the times had been recorded and maintained its longest wait to be seen for the first time was one hour, 48 minutes.

At Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust, which runs Sandwell and City Hospital, one patient waited 23 hours for assessment and treatment.

The trust today said the longer waits were due to patients with mental health problems waiting to be transferred to specialist units.

Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital had a patient waiting more than 12 hours in total while one person waited almost two hours to be seen for the first time.

The Dudley Group of Hospitals had someone wait four and a half hours for an initial assessment, while another stayed 12 hours before treatment.

Dominic Benson, from the Department of Health, said: "A total of 97 per cent of patients are still admitted or discharged from A&E within four hours of arriving."