Portsmouth trust struggles on emergency

May board papers show that in April the 95^th percentile waited six hours and five minutes. This was down from the month before, but still above the target of four hours.

Ninety per cent of emergency patients were admitted or discharged in four hours, down from 95 per cent in March.

The single longest wait to treatment was eight hours and 23 minutes, an improvement of 17 minutes on the previous month and more than an hour better than the figure for quarter four of 2011-12.

Board papers say: “Failure to achieve the required performance standards in April has primarily resulted from the detrimental impact on patient flow throughout the hospital from continuing:

“Mismatches between medical staffing levels and the profile of emergency activity across all sections of the health sector;

“Challenges to the consistent implementation of effective flow policies across the Trust,

preventing the timely admission;

“Challenges to the consistent implementation of effective discharge processes across all sections of the health sector, resulting in continued high numbers of medically stable patients occupying hospital.”