On average, visitors leave three hours earlier than from the second largest
NEW data published by the Welsh government shows that Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales has the shortest A&E waiting times of all major hospitals in the country.
Over 77% of all visitors are seen within four hours and over 96% don’t have to wait longer than 12 hours.
However, their current performance is still a far stretch from the Welsh Government’s target of 95% of all patients across Wales being seen within four hours.
The average percentage of patients seen within four hours across Wales in January was 74%, an improvement on the record low 70% of patients in December.
Compared to the next five biggest A&E departments, in terms of patients, Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales is only beaten by Prince Charles hospital of Merthyr Tydfil at four hours, but has a considerably better performance at both the eight and 12-hour mark.
The statistic represents a significant increase on a difficult December for Cardiff’s main hospital, where they fell below 70% for the first time in the past year.
A&E waiting times have fallen slightly during the Coronavirus pandemic but the hospital will look to continue its positive trend starting in 2021.
Welsh A&E attendance has dipped during the lockdown, and has hit the lowest point since April last year partly due to the “Stay at Home” order put in place by the Welsh Government.
The Coronavirus pandemic has had a large impact on the hospital, but they still remain a long distance behind their government target and start 2021 in a worse place than where they had been at the beginning of 2020.
The average of all Cardiff and Vale Health Board hospitals was slightly better, with 78% of patients being seen within four hours.
The Cardiff & Vale Health Board also includes Barry Hospital’s Minor Injury Unit, which only had 231 patients in January, but was able to see 230 of them within four hours.
Health Boards are regional organisations that control all NHS operations in different regions of Wales.
Of the seven Welsh Health Boards, the Cardiff & Vale Health Board had the fourth lowest waiting times overall.
Powys Teaching Health Board, that covers the whole region of Powys, was able to see every one of their patients within four hours, but they had under 500 patients last month, which is tiny compared to Cardiff & Vale’s 7,558.
The mean average time to spend waiting at A&E in Cardiff was just over five and a half hours, which may seem high but is nearly three hours less than any of the next five biggest emergency departments in Wales.
The most common amount of waiting time at University Hospital of Wales’ emergency department was around three and a half hours.
The longest average time spent waiting in A&E was Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in North Wales, in which the waiting time was over 13 hours and the most common amount of waiting time was over five hours.
Accident and Emergency attendance dipped by more than half between January and April last year, and attendance has remained on a steady decline since August 2020.
The Cardiff & Vale Health Board have refused to comment on the contents of this article.
