A&E waiting times on the increase in Birmingham hospitals

Figures to be presented to the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust board show performance against the target of seeing patients in A&E within 15 minutes had deteriorated in January, compared with the month before.

A report to board members also shows the average time patients spent in EDs has increased.

The trust's performance in these areas is under scrutiny from national NHS bosses and the report said the trust remains committed to improving the four-hour and 12-hour ED targets, as well as reducing average ambulance handover times.

The issue will be discussed when the UHB NHS Trust meets today (March 26).

The report said: “The trust is in tier 1, the highest level of oversight, as part of the NHS England tiering programme for urgent and emergency care (UEC).

“For the year ahead, the trust remains focussed in improving performance against the four-hour target to 71 per cent by March 2026, reducing average ambulance handover time to 42 minutes by March 2026 and reducing the proportion of patients spending longer than 12 hours in emergency departments compared to the levels seen in 2024-25.

“The UEC service over the winter months has experienced significant levels of pressure across all sites with very high numbers of patients in all inpatient areas and EDs, resulting in long waits within EDs, assessment areas and in the community for those requiring an emergency ambulance negatively impacting all key UEC performance metrics.

“Four-hour performance continued to deteriorate and fell to 59 per cent in January, a 1.7 per cent reduction from December.

“The gap between monthly trajectory and actual performance increased further with a target of 63.2 per cent in January.

“Four-hour compliance dropped at Heartlands and Queen Elizabeth by 2.9 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.

“Compared to previous month, Good Hope and Solihull Hospital performance improved by 2.7 per cent and 0.8 per cent respectively.

“Total number of attendances increased by 5.7 per cent in January 2026 compared to January 2025.

“Overall, the average time spent in A&E increased in January to 407 minutes in comparison to 343 in the previous month and an additional 34 minutes compared to January 2025.

“Admitted patients spent on average 802 minutes receiving treatment compared to 633 in December and non-admitted patients spent 252 minutes, rising from 224 minutes in December.”