HC Deb 05 November 2002 vol 392 cc278-9W
Mr. Waterson

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients at Eastbourne District General Hospital waited longer than(a) four and (b) 24 hours in accident and emergency in each of the last 12 months; and what proportion they were of the total. [78699]

Ms Blears

Eastbourne Hospitals National Health Service Trust merged with Hastings and Rother NHS Trust in April 2002 to form East Sussex NHS Trust. Data are collected by NHS trust and not by individual hospital site. Therefore data are presented for Eastbourne Hospitals Trust up to March 2002. From April to September 2002, the data are for East Sussex NHS Trust as a whole.

The number of patients spending over four hours in accident and emergency (A&E), from arrival to departure, for each month in the last year is shown in the table.

Month Patients spending over four hours in A&E Total A&E attendances Percentage of total
September 2001 472 3,176 14.9
October 2001 533 3,889 13.7
November 2001 484 3,124 15.5
December 2001 645 3,708 17.4
January 2002 506 2,810 18.0
February 2002 464 2,810 16.5
March 2002 511 3,080 16.6
April 2002 1,060 6,371 16.6
May 2002 1,400 8,394 16.7
June 2002 1,051 6,876 15.3
July 2002 1,560 8,976 17.4
August 2002 1,233 7,376 16.7
September 2002 1,298 6,005 21.6

These data are taken from management information provided by the trusts and have not been validated by the Department.

Information is not collected centrally on the number of patients spending over 24 hours in A&E. Information is collected on the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission via A&E, the time from the clinician's decision to admit until the patient is admitted to an in-patient ward. Eastbourne District General Hospital, now part of East Sussex NHS Trust, has not reported any of these in the past 12 months.