Hospitals’ accident and emergency departments are at their busiest on Monday morning, dealing with double their average hourly attendance, research shows.

Health and Social Care Information Centre figures for 2011-12 show departments across England collectively deal with about 4,000 arrivals per hour between 10am and 12 noon on a Monday compared to the typical hourly average of 2,000, .

Such a trend also occurred in 2010-11, when A&Es saw 3,700 cases per hour, compared with the typical hourly average of 1,900.

The centre’s Accident and Emergency Attendances in England (experimental statistics) 2011-12 report says the age, gender and regions of A&E patients did not change from other times.

The report found that a total of 17.6 million patients attended A&E in 2011-12, up on the 16.2 million in the period 12 months previously.

Information centre chief executive Tim Straughan said the new figures would be of interest to the health service, the government and the public.

Mr Straughan added the new A&E findings showed “just how much society relies on these frontline services”.

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