Ulster’s multimillion new Emergency ward has second worst waits in province
Special Report by Iain Gray
LESS than one in five patients at the Ulster Hospital’s multi million-pound new A&E are being seen within the government target four hours.
And far more are forced to wait longer than 12 hours to be seen compared to last year, despite a massive drop in the number of people attending the Emergency Department.
That’s according to statistics released this week by the Department of Health, covering April through June this year, which show the Dundonald hospital’s A&E is now the second-worst performing in Northern Ireland on several vital metrics.
Due to issues with a digital-only records system introduced last autumn, the new figures are the first ones to show the difference in the Ulster’s performance before and after sweeping changes were made to local health provision last September.
And they appear to demonstrate that far fewer people are using the Ulster Hospital’s A&E – but those that do attend are waiting far longer.
The South Eastern Health Trust rejects that conclusion, however, arguing ‘it is no longer beneficial’ to compare waiting times before and after last September’s changes because the system has been radically altered by those very changes.
Within a couple of weeks last September, the Trust axed Minor Injuries Units (MIUs) in Bangor and Newtownards, opened the Ulster’s new Emergency Department, and introduced a new ‘enhanced MIU’ at the Dundonald hospital.
The MIU closures in particular were incredibly controversial, though Trust officials at the time claimed the changes would lead to improved health care and tackle problems with wait times and access at the Emergency Department.
This week’s statistics show that in June of this year, 6,910 people attended the Ulster’s A&E. That’s around 2,600 fewer people than the same period of the year before, a drop of roughly 27%.
In June 2023, however, 45.3% of patients were seen within four hours; this year, just 18.7% were.
That’s sent the Ulster from being mid-table in terms of A&E performance to second-worst, despite the massive drop in the number of people coming through the ward’s doors.
Meanwhile 275 extra patients were stuck waiting for 12 hours or more, a rise of 18.6% on last year; again, the Ulster is the province’s second-worst performing hospital on that metric.
The government says no patients should have to spend more than 12 hours in A&E waiting to be seen. Two months ago, 1,765 people were forced to do just that at the Ulster Hospital.
In June last year, 63.8% of Emergency Department patients started treatment within two hours of being triaged, a firmly mid-table figure. This year that fell to 42%, the second worst result in Northern Ireland and well below the provincewide average of 61.4%.
The figures show that the median time it took to start treatment after triage almost doubled, going from a below-average 78 minutes last year to a well above average 153 minutes this year.
It’s important to remember that the Ulster wasn’t coming close to meeting most government targets last year, something that was true across all 10 of Northern Ireland’s A&Es.
