Our teams have been working hard to reduce the waits our patients face in our Emergency Departments (EDs). Since February this year, they have improved our performance against the national target for those who are most seriously ill (Type 1) by over 20 per cent.

In July, our Type 1 performance was 51.25 per cent, compared to 30.76 per cent in February. The national standard is that 95 per cent of patients should be seen, treated and either admitted or discharged within four hours.

At Queen’s Hospital it was 51.39 per cent, and this was the first time our performance at this site has been above 50 per cent since October 2019 (excluding Covid-19 lockdowns). At King George Hospital, it was 50.99 per cent.

This is recognised in the July national NHS performance figures, published on Thursday 10 August, where after several months as the worst performer in the country, we are above 19 other trusts. We are also no longer at the bottom of the table for London trusts.

Our Chief Executive, Matthew Trainer (above), said: “We know we still have a long way to go and that too many patients are still facing long waits. However, we absolutely should recognise this achievement and the hard work our teams have put in to get us here.”

Matthew credits the opening of Same Day Emergency Care departments (SDEC), where most patients are seen and treated in the same day without needing to be admitted, at both hospitals, with helping us to achieve this jump in performance. Other factors which played a role included improving the quality of operational leadership, and better engagement with clinical colleagues. (Pictured below are staff at the King George Hospital SDEC).

As for the next steps, he added: “Our target now is to move up from 50 to 60 per cent, and we know this will be harder as there are fewer clear opportunities to improve. We also continue to face challenges including a high number of mental health patients who face average waits of more than 20 hours. In July, we saw record numbers of patients, 244, referred to mental health services at King George Hospital. This is challenging for our staff, and not good enough for our patients.”

Our overall four-hour performance is split roughly down the middle between our Trust and PELC, a GP cooperative which runs the urgent treatment centres (UTC) at both hospitals. This is where the less seriously ill patients (known as Type 3) are treated. In July, PELC’s Type 3 performance was 70.9 per cent.

We’ll both need to play our part to continue to improve our overall performance and therefore we’re working closely with them to speed up triaging of those patients who need to be seen in A&E. PELC has also recently opened a separate, dedicated waiting area for children and their parents at the UTC in the foyer at Queen’s Hospital.