More than two in five A&E patients wait longer than four hours at Royal Free London

More than two in five patients seeking A&E care at the Royal Free London 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 Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust fell well behind that target in November, when just 58% of the 22,057 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 42% of patients attending major A&E at the Royal Free London waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, compared to 44% in October, and 38% in November 2021.

Including the 4,688 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 65% of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in November.

At Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust:

In November:

1,867 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – 7% of patients

Of those, 518 were delayed by more than 12 hours

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in October:

The median time to treatment was 86 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times

Around 8% of patients left before being treated