A and E Departments

Julia Goldsworthy
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of accident and emergency patients in England had a trolley wait of over four hours in the last period for which figures are available.

Ms Rosie Winterton
Information on the percentage of patients not placed in a bed in a ward within four hours of a decision to admit, commonly referred to as a ‘trolley wait’, is reported by national health service trusts quarterly. During the period July to September 2006 there were 4,892,547 attendances at all types of accident and emergency department, of which 752,049 were subsequently admitted.

Of those admitted patients, it was reported that 1.4 per cent. were not placed in a bed in a ward within four hours of a decision to admit being made.