THE number of patients waiting more than four hours to be admitted for emergency treatment at York Hospital has quadrupled in the last year, it has been revealed.

Thousands of patients are now waiting more than four hours between the time it takes for a doctor to decide to admit them and them being admitted for emergency treatment at York Hospital.

NHS data for York Teaching Hospitals showed a 2019 total more than four times higher than in 2018.

Between July to September last, there were 343 cases of people waiting over four hours after a doctor decided to admit them, compared to 1,944 who waited more than four hours this year in the same time frame.

Meanwhile, there were 39 patients at York Teaching Hospitals who waited more than 12 hours to be assigned a bed last year.

Spokesman for Defend Our NHS York, Mick Phythian, said: “The increasing delay in finding patients a bed in the York Trust, especially compared with the region, needs to be resolved now as the implications are disastrous.

“We know the relative cuts in NHS budgets have resulted in ward and bed closure but we have clearly passed the breaking point.

A spokesperson for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The volume of patients to our emergency departments continues to rise year on year, which is reflected against the four-hour target in October 2019 which was the worst since it was introduced.

“Nationally the total number of attendances in October 2019 was an increase of 4.4 per cent on the same month last year, while our emergency departments saw an 11 per cent rise which is an additional 1,840 patients attending our hospitals.

“On average 40 per cent of patients who attend our main emergency departments are subsequently admitted, increasing the pressure on the number of beds available.

“Safety is our priority and we see patients on the basis of clinical urgency. This means some people wait longer to be seen. The number of patients with greater severity of illness is also increasing as ambulance arrivals increased by 5 per cent in October when compared to the same period last year.”

“The Trust and our wider system partners are working with the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team from NHS Improvement to develop and improve handover processes to cope with this increased demand for services.”