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The main entrance to Macclesfield Hospital.
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Hospital misses A&E targets
Chris Morris30/ 4/2008
ACCIDENT and emergency patients are not being seen fast enough at Macclesfield Hospital, with over a sixth languishing longer than four hours.
As part of a drive to ensure all admissions are seen promptly, 98 per cent should be seen within the first four hours of checking in.
However, at a recent meeting of the hospital’s trust board, it was revealed that only 85pc were seen within four hours, leaving the hospital falling well short of the target.
Chief executive of Macclesfield Hospital John Wilbraham admitted: "We have not been able to achieve 98pc in the first quarter of this year in our key performance indicators.
"We wanted to able to do that in the first quarter of this year and we should be able to be flexible enough to cope with any increase."
He added that the hospital sees around 150 patients a day and hoped to back on track in mid-August.
Veronica Aherne, deputy chief executive, added: "We want to be able to predict how many admissions we have a day, we will be in a better position of knowing the impact on the hospital then."
The trust insists it is committed to achieving the four-hour benchmark, and failure to reach it will be treated as a "serious and untoward incident".
The news will come a shock for board members, due to the successes over the past year.
John added: "Last year we were hovering around the 97 to 98 mark, so we are confident we can reduce the numbers who have to wait, but it will take some time."
The figures have taken a hammering lately, but could be back to normal sooner than thought – admissions seen in under four hours were up to 95.05pc for April.
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