Pressure on A&E staff hits record levels

Waiting times at casualty departments are rocketing as pressure on doctors and nurses reaches record levels.

Patients needing treatment are being diverted from busy units or forced to wait more than four hours to see a medic.

Health bosses today warned that the strain on frontline staff is at its highest for years even before the peak flu season hits.

A hospital in Bromley closed its doors for at least three hours this week after bosses admitted they could not cope.

The London hospitals chief warned that A&E waiting times across the capital had increased in the past eight weeks. Malcolm Stamp said: "We are facing, for the first time in a number of years, some significant pressures on the front doors of our hospitals."

At a board meeting of the city's health bosses he said London patients are now waiting longer than anywhere else in the country.

Mr Stamp said it was not clear why A&E waits had risen because overall attendances had not increased and demand on the London Ambulance Service was stable. But he said the current-delays pointed to a blip, not a crisis, and affected only "selected" areas of London. Other trusts significantly breaching the Government's four-hour wait limit for A&E patients include Barking, Havering and Redbridge, the West Middlesex and Ealing.

Mr Stamp's comments came after ambulances heading for casualty at the Princess Royal Hospital in Bromley on Tuesday were told to take patients to Queen Mary's Sidcup in Bexley instead. One source at Bromley said four emergency surgical patients

Nurses said overcrowding meant patients were forced to wait on trolleys as staff at the Queen Mary's battled with "the shift from hell".

But managers denied the trolley claim and said only less urgent patients were diverted.

The news comes after the Standard revealed that at least two major A&E units in the area are to be downgraded.

Managers are planning to cut acute casualty services at Queen Mary's and Lewisham Hospital and replace them with urgent care centres. The area would be left with two major units - at Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich and the Princess Royal, which faces debts of £87million.

Yvonne Dyer, of the Royal College of Nursing, told health bosses: "Patients were waiting on trolleys [yet] Bromley trust and Queen Elizabeth have been identified as the main A&E hospitals. There is a big concern about capacity."

The news will stoke fears that London-wide plans to cut A&E departments will put too much pressure on patients and staff.