By Charlotte Webster-
North London A&E waiting times in January were typically worse than the rest of the country, NHS figures have revealed.
According to a BBC analysis of the data, only two north London hospitals had patients waiting in the emergency room longer than the target four hours, at rates below the English average.
Whittington Hospital in Islington, University College Hospital in Camden, Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and North Middlesex University Hospital in Tottenham all performed below the national average.
Whittington Hospital was the worst in north London, with more than a third of 8,309 arrivals (36%) waiting more than four hours.
At Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, 27% of 25,993 arrivals waited more than four hours.
Homerton Hospital in Hackney had one of the best records, with just 17% of the hospital’s 9,854 emergency department arrivals waiting longer than the NHS target time.
Within the NHS, the operational standard is that at least 95% of patients presenting to the emergency department should be discharged within four hours.
Nationwide, the number of people waiting in emergency rooms more than 12 hours from the admission decision to the actual admission has fallen by more than a fifth since December.
The number of patients visiting emergency departments in England fell in January due to industrial action across the healthcare sector.
A total of 2 million people visited emergency departments in January, up from a record 2.3 million in December.
A Whittington Health NHS Trust spokesman said: “Like NHS services across the country, Whittington Health is very busy as we attend to a large number of patients arriving at our emergency department requiring treatment.
“Our staff are doing everything they can to treat everyone as quickly and safely as possible, but our apologies to anyone who is having to wait a long time.”
A spokesman for Homerton Healthcare said: “Homerton Healthcare continues to compare favorably to the vast majority of NHS trusts across the country when it comes to managing both A&E wait times and elective surgery wait times.
“The achievement is largely due to the outstanding efforts of all our staff across the Trust and the active support of colleagues in primary care and local authorities.”
A spokesman for Royal Free London said: “Our emergency departments remain extremely busy this winter and staff are working incredibly hard to ensure patients can be seen as quickly as possible.”
“We have taken a number of measures to reduce waiting times, including the opening of an additional short-term care unit to create more capacity in our hospitals.”
The Whittington Hospital in Islington, University College Hospital in Camden, Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead and North Middlesex University Hospital in Tottenham all performed worse than the national average.
The Whittington Hospital was the worst-performing in north London, as more than a third of 8,309 arrivals (36%), waited for longer than four hours.
At Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, 27% of 25,993 arrivals waited for longer than four hours.
Homerton Hospital in Hackney had one of the best records, with just 17% of 9,854 arrivals at the hospital’s A&E department waiting longer than the NHS target time.
Within the NHS, the operational standard is that at least 95% of patients attending A&E should be discharged within four hours.
Nationwide, the number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments, from a decision to admit to actually being admitted, has dropped by more than a fifth since December.
A total of 2 million people attended emergency departments in January, down from a record of 2.3 million in December.
A spokesperson for Whittington Health NHS Trust said: “Our staff are doing everything we can to treat everyone as quickly and safely as possible, but we apologise to anyone who has to wait for a long time.”
A spokesperson for Homerton Healthcare said: “Homerton Healthcare continues to perform well in dealing with both A&E waits and waiting times for elective surgery when compared to the vast majority of NHS trusts across the country.
“The performance is mainly due to the outstanding efforts of all our staff across the Trust and the active support of primary care and local authority colleagues.”
A spokesperson for Royal Free London said: “We have taken a number of measures to try to reduce waiting times, including opening an additional short-stay ward to create more capacity within our hospitals.”
A UCLH spokesperson said: “Despite this being one of the busiest winters for the NHS on record UCLH has some of the best ambulance handover waiting times in London and the majority of patients were seen within four hours at the Emergency Department in line with the national averages.”
A spokesperson for the NHS in London, said: “There is no doubt that hospitals in London have experienced significant demand for emergency care this winter as NHS staff continue to work flat-out to deliver the best care for patients.
“As part of extensive winter preparations, we have introduced more beds and streamlined discharges with social care colleagues to manage increased demand and will build on that with the new plan to recover urgent and emergency care, launched at the end of last month.”