Charing Cross Hospital in Fulham Palace Road
New NHS data reveals more than 350 patients had to wait more than four hours to be seen at Charing Cross Hospital’s A&E in a one week period earlier this year.
Figures from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs a number of hospitals including Charing Cross, showed almost 40% of people using the emergency department in the second week of January missed the set government target.
Hospitals aim to see 95% of patients in the A&E department in four hours.
Other findings showed a big increase in patients being treated at the blue-light unit following the loss of A&E departments at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex Hospitals in 2014 as part of the Shaping a Healthier Future (SaHF) programme .
The findings come amid a backdrop of uncertainty surrounding the future of emergency department at Charing Cross Hosital, in Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, with Hammersmith and Fulham Council and campaigners fearing plans are under way for it to be downgraded.
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mperial gave assurances over the A&E and said the similar pressures were being encountered in A&Es around England.
Ambulances outside Charing Cross Hospital
The figures revealed 889 people attended A&E at Charing Cross during the second week of the year, with 60% seen within the four-hour target set by the government.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council leader, Stephen Cowan , said: “With A&E under greater demand and hard-pressed staff struggling to keep waiting times down, the plan to effectively close A&E at Charing Cross Hospital is both cavalier and dangerous.”
According to the NHS figures, in November, the last full month for which statsitics are currently available, the number of patients treated by A&E at Charing Cross Hospital was 3,712 – an increase of almost a third on the figure from the same month two years previously, which Cllr Cowan blames on the closure of neighbouring A&Es.
At the same time, the A&E department at St Mary’s Hospital , also run by Imperial, saw almost half of adult patients wait more than four hours to be seen.
Vanessa Redgrave fights for Charing Cross A&E
Check the video clip here:
Cllr Cowan said: “Local people are suffering, and being forced to wait unacceptable amounts to time, as dedicated hospital staff do their best in the face of these cuts.”
The pressures put on staff in the trust has been highlighted in the BBC documentary "Hospital", set at St Mary’s in Paddington.
Demand at Charing Cross A&E increased during the summer months , which came ahead of the expected annual winter spike and flu season, and as the A&E department was extended with a new 13-space acute assessment, as well as a new 35-bed acute admissions ward.
Imperial said there were complex causes for the increase.
The trust said: “With the support of Imperial College Healthcare Charity, we are currently making significant improvements to a range of facilities at Charing Cross, including A&E, acute medicine, outpatients and theatres.”
Hammersmith and Fulham Council is one of several Labour-run local authorities in west London fighting the SaHF plans.
It commissioned an Independent Healthcare Report put together by Michael Mansfield QC which labelled SaHF “flawed” and called for its immediate halting.
Get West London
- 09:19, 30 JAN 2017
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