Wait times for emergencies during winters at Ipswich and Colchester Hospitals have risen to levels higher than before the Covid pandemic, it has emerged.
Between November 2023 and February this year, the average A&E wait time within NHS East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) was 82.18 minutes - or 1 hour and 22 minutes.
This is a rise of more than 13% when compared with the previous winter, which saw little more than 70 minutes of wait.
The previous peak in wait times was the winter of 2019/20, which saw an average of 73 minutes of waiting for patients at the emergency departments.
Nick Hulme, the chief executive of ESNEFT, apologised to patients who may face longer waits at the hospitals' A&E departments - but stressed that patients with more critical needs must be attended to first.
He said: “The number of very unwell patients coming into hospital with complex health needs continues to rise.
"We assess each patient when they arrive so we can be sure we treat those with the most urgent clinical needs first.
"We’re sorry this can mean that some people with less urgent needs have to wait longer when demand is high for our services."
He also added that the team at ESNEFT is working hard to provide urgent care and reduce the delays as much as possible.
Since 2019, ESNEFT also increased the number of nurses employed at its hospitals. Today there are 171 more nurses than there were five years ago.
ESNEFT has said it is pushing to address the issue of increasing waiting times within the year.
By early autumn, it expects to have a new urgent treatment centre and emergency department open at Ipswich Hospital.
Along with that, a GP streaming service will be introduced at Ipswich Hospital while Colchester will also see a new A&E unit and a new elective orthopaedic surgery theatre.
However, the independent chair of Healthwatch Suffolk, Wendy Herber, has argued that the current numbers reflect the pressure on healthcare and said the increased wait times add to the anxiety of patients.
“Public confidence in our urgent and emergency care system is not critically influenced by waiting times alone, although it is a significant factor," she said.
"People generally expect to wait at A&E, but their overall experience will depend on the speed and thoroughness of the initial assessment they receive, the quality of treatment and advice they get, and the extent to which they are kept informed about how they have been prioritised by the service.
"Ultimately, people need to feel that they are visible and be reassured that they will be seen.”
Labour has recently hit out at the Conservative Party over the nationwide issues facing the A&E departments at NHS hospitals.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “On [Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak’s watch, record numbers of patients are left waiting for hours on end in A&E when delays can cost lives.
“Under the Conservatives, people can no longer trust the NHS to be there for them when they need it.
“When Labour was last in government, patients were treated in good time, and the maximum waiting time was cut from 18 months to 18 weeks."
In response, a Conservative spokesman said: "We are committed to ensuring all patients receive the care they need, when they need it, and we are already seeing progress.
“Despite record demand this winter, four-hour A&E performance improved compared to March last year.
“Despite the impact of the Covid pandemic, we’re also making progress in reducing the overall NHS waiting list, which has fallen by almost 200,000 over the past five months."
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