The number of patients being seen in less than four hours at Derby’s accident and emergency departments has plummeted in the last 10 years.
Last year only 52.7% of people who visited A&E departments at University hospitals of Derby and Burton were seen within the NHS’ national target of four hours.
Hospital Bosses have said that the number of people visiting A&E at UHDB has increased by 59,000 people in last 10 years which has put substantial strain on the service.
The Derby and Burton NHS trust sits in between Leicester and Nottingham when it comes to the percentage of people waiting less than four hours in A&E.
Nottingham is the worst in the area with only 42.8% being seen within the target.
Leicester has the highest percentage in the east midlands despite only seeing 53.8 percent of A&E patients within the target time frame.
Even though there has been an increase in people being seen within the target timeframe in the last year, only just over half are being seen within it at UHDB hospitals.
The A&E waiting time target was introduced in 2004 under the Blair government with the aim to see 98% of people within that time.
The 2010 coalition government then lowered this, with hospitals aiming to have 95% of people seen with the four hours.
In February 2025, the current Labour government has cut this, aiming for 78% of A&E patients to be seen within the target by March 2026.
Andonis Loizou,40, who lives in Allestree is an ex-paramedic.
He said: “I was in that line of work for a while and I can honestly say the NHS is beyond repair.
“Towards the end, I would attend maybe 1-2 jobs a day as people would have to wait potentially 10-plus hours just for the ambulance, then we would then have to sit and wait in park at the hospital waiting to hand over the patient because A&E was so busy.”
“Funding should have been given to other areas of the health service.”
This account aligns with the data which shows that UHDB saw a record number of patients in 2023-24.
However despite a 36.2% increase in total admissions to A&E in the last 10 years, there was a 1298.3% increase in people waiting over the four hour target at UHDB.
Matthew Wall, 54, from Borrowash spent 15 hours in A&E at UHDB on Thursday 24 April.
He said: “My GP told to immediately go to A&E as my blood tests showed what he said was life threatening results, but when we got there we had to wait eight hours before being saw by a doctor.
“It was so busy nurses from SDEC had to come and allocate patients to there, and we were told this happens on a daily basis.
“I’m fine now but it wasn’t a good experience.
“We don’t blame the staff, they’re trying their hardest but there just isn’t enough of them and it shows how clearly underfunded the NHS is.”
A UHDB representative has said they are caring for tens of thousands more patients than in prior years and claim that in a recent month, the percentage of those seen within the targeted four hours has increased.
They stressed that their staff work hard and have to deal with people with more serious conditions first, so people should use other available services before resulting to A&E.
The representative said: “In 2023/24 our hardworking A&E staff cared for more than 59,000 extra patients than there were 10 years ago, and despite A&E attendances continuing to increase year-on-year, in January more than 68% of patients were seen within four hours in our A&Es.
“While our teams work hard to see patients as quickly as they can, they prioritise people based on their clinical need to make sure those with emergency, life-threatening conditions are seen first, and that can mean that some patients may face a longer wait time.
“We would always encourage people with less urgent needs to use NHS 111 to find the right service to help them or consider going to an urgent treatment centre where they will always be seen quicker than in a busy A&E department.”
