A&E departments: 15 hospitals with the worst waiting times in England

More than 100 hospitals in England failed to hit NHS A&E waiting time targets last month, resulting in over half a million patients waiting four hours or longer for emergency care.

The NHS benchmark is for at least 95% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours but NHS England data shows 116 hospitals failed to hit the target in May.

As a result 525,681 ill or injured attendees waited four hours or longer, representing over a quarter (27%) of all attendees.

The analysis comes as emergency departments continue to work under acute strain due to coronavirus backlogs.

In total emergency departments dealt with 2.2 million attendances in May, an 8% increase on April’s figures and a 5% increase on May 2021 figures.

The total number of A&E attendances were also the highest in May since current records began in 2011.

Waiting times vary widely across the country though and not all failed to hit the target in May. In total 61 hospitals had 95% or more of A&E attendees admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Here we reveal which NHS hospitals had the longest waiting times in May.