The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety today published statistics on the time waiting in Accident and Emergency (A&E) Departments within Northern Ireland during the month of April 2010.

The statistical bulletin presents information on all new attendances and unplanned re-attendances during April 2010. It also details the performance of each HSC Trust and hospital against the Priorities for Action target below:

‘From April 2010, HSC Board and Trusts should ensure 95% of patients attending any A&E department are either treated and discharged home, or admitted, within four hours of their arrival in the department. No patient should wait longer than 12 hours’.

Key Points - April 2010

The key findings presented in the statistics release are listed below.

Over four in five (83%) of patients were either treated and discharged or admitted within four hours of their arrival in an A&E Department during April 2010, compared to 80% in March 2010 and 82% in February 2010 (Tables 1 and 4).

In April 2010, 633 patients waited longer than 12 hours across all of the Trusts, compared to 1,239 in March 2010 and 538 in February 2010 (Tables 1 and 4).

There were a total of 62,382 attendances at A&E Departments for the month of April 2010 compared to 61,038 in March 2010 and 51,132 in February 2010 (Table 3).

The information release is published on the DHSSPS website.