- Patients seen in under 4 hours decreased from 79% in Aug 2013 to 76% in Aug 2013
- There was an increase in patients waiting over 12 hours from 96 in Aug 2012 to 145 in Aug 2013
- Royal Victoria Hospital: No material difference in performance. 70% of patients were seen in less than 4 hours.
- Mater Hospital: Not material change in attendance, small improvement in 4 hour target moving from 71% in Aug 2012 to 79 % in Aug 2013
- RBHSC: No material difference in performance or attendances. 92% of patients were seen in less than 4 hours.
Northern HSCT:
- Antrim Area: Seen a drop in attendance of 235 patients, which most likely account for the improved performance in the 4 hour target. 77% of patients seen in less than 4 hours and improvement from 67% in Aug 2012. New A&E still seems to be ineffective with fewer numbers attending the facility.
- Causeway: Seen a drop in attendance of 321 patients, despite this there was a marginal decrease of 2% in patients being seen in less than 4 hours with 78% of patients being seen in under the target time.
- Whiteabbey Minor Injury Unit: Seen a decrease of 114 patients attending the unit, this is following a likewise pattern over the past 12 months of falling attendances.
- Mid Ulster Minor Injury Unit: Seen an increase of 32 patients when compared to Aug 2012, this follows a likewise pattern of increased attendances at the unit over the past year.
South Eastern HSCT
- Ulster Hospital: Seen a marginal decrease in attendance of 96 patients, 70% of patients was seen in less than 4 hours in Aug 2013 compared to 78% in Aug 2013. It had 103 12 hour breaches, the largest amount of all A&E’s.
Southern HSCT:
- Craigavon: Seen a marginal increase of 96 patients, only 75% of patients were seen in less than 4 hours compared to 85% in Aug 2012, a 10% drop in performance.
Western HSCT:
- Altnagelvin: Seen an increase of 439 attendances at A&E, the worst performing of all type 1 A&E’s during Aug 2013 with only 66% of patients being seen in less than 4 hours, compared to 83% in Aug 2012.
- South West hospital: Seen an increase of 124 patients attending the A&E, its performance against the hour target slipped from 95% in Aug 2012 to 89% in Aug 2013.
Year on year the performance of acute, type 1, A&E’s are falling, while there may be marginal difference when comparing A&E’s month to month, patterns in A&E are best on the month in the previous year due to seasonal variances that have already been identified.
As transforming Your Care starts to be implemented statistics show that there is still an increased demand for acute services, the very services that transforming Your Care aims to dilute, the false hopes portrayed by Edwin Poots and other health chiefs show that even in the quiet summer period that our acute health system is on the brink of collapse with failing performances, as we move into the winter months and see an increased demand we will begin and see the cracks that have been covered up over the summer.
The new A&E at Antrim while welcome is still ineffective, and according to nurses and Dr’s who speak to Save The Mid the figures given by the Trust are not an accurate reflection, with the old A&E area being used as a dumping ground for mostly elderly patients. While these patients are in the old A&E are waiting to be admitted to the main hospital or discharged they are no longer classed as being in A&E and the time they spend in there is not reflected in the perforce.
Despite this the new A&E at Antrim was proposed to be able to cater for 90,000 patients a year, this was either a gross miscalculation or there are still other major issues at Antrim that with this new facility it still cannot get near the 955 target for seeing patients in less than 4 hours in A&E.
There are still the serious issues of not enough consultants, doctors, nurse and beds within Antrim and until that is remedied the cover up will continue within the Northern Health & Social Care Trust and those who will suffer are acutely ill patients and frontline line staff. These problems did not exist when the Northern Trust had the Mid Ulster Hospital open.
The Northern trust is the largest residential trust in Northern Ireland, to serve this population the Trust have a under staffed half built Antrim hospital and the Causeway hospital which is being run down to shut down in the exact same way the Mid Ulster was. It is time the Northern Trust were ordered to stop all reconfiguration based on financial savings and started to utilise the resources that it has at its disposal. This should start with reintroducing services to the Mid Ulster site for intermediate and type 2 acute care so that Antrim and causeway can focus on the type 1 acute care.
Hugh McCloy
Save The Mid - http://savethemid.weebly.com/
Tel: 07871503189 (after 6pm)
Email: [email protected]
Twitter : @SaveTheMid