Lincolnshire’s hospitals are the worst in the country for A&E waiting times, new figures have revealed.
Analysis by the BBC shows that hospitals run by the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (ULHT) came bottom out of a total of 130 trusts in the UK for the amount of patients seen at A&E within four hours.
The target for this is 95% of patients and the national average is currently at 89.1%- but ULHT only managed to see 67.2% of their patients within four hours.
Mark Brassington, Chief Operating Officer at ULHT, said: “The quality and safety of patient care is the Trust’s number one priority.
“Our staff work extremely hard and we know the majority of our patients feel we offer a good and caring service.”
ULHT hospitals include Lincoln County Hospital, Grantham and District Hospital, Pilgrim Hospital Boston and County Hospital Louth.
Whilst the trust beat the target of 75% for the amount of mental health patients seen within six weeks of referral, it also fell behind targets for planned operations and cancer treatment.
But Mr Brassington added: “Over the last year we have seen more patients using our services, often above national increases, which has placed pressure on all of our hospitals.
“We also have workforce challenges, which reflect national shortages of staff across a range of specialties and like many rural areas we have been particularly affected by this.
“Despite these challenges, we have improved against a number of cancer standards and maintained our waiting list position.
“We also accept our performance has deteriorated in our emergency departments, resulting in our inability to see, treat and admit patients as quickly as we would like.
“We continue to address our challenges head on in order to improve services for our patients.”