MORE than 20 per cent of patients at Southampton General Hospital had to wait longer than four hours to be seen in A&E last month.
The trust says meeting the official NHS waiting times target has become “extremely difficult” due to “significant increases” in the number of patients.
Figures released by NHS England for December 2019 show just 78.3 per cent were admitted, transferred or discharged in less than four hours after arriving.
A total of 11,586 people came through the doors of the A&E department, with 2,509 having to wait longer than four hours across the 31-day period.
Casualty units are set a target of seeing at least 95 per cent of patients within four hours but last month the national performance of just 79.8 per cent was the worst achieved since the performance records began in 2004.
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