NEARLY 52,000 patients attended A&E at Hereford County Hospital over the past financial year –  with around 300 operations cancelled because of pressures on emergency activity.

New figures show main A&E attendances - at 51,717 - up from 49,561 over 2013-14.

A&E has also seen a significant increase  in complaints that the trust says shows evidence of a “direct correlation”  to the pressures the department is under and on-going capacity issues across emergency care.

Waiting times and “poor communication” are themes common to the complaints.

A&E performance over March – with the Minor Injury Units at Leominster and Ross shut so staff could transfer to Hereford - was the highest since October.

Pressures were compounded by a severe norovirus outbreak affecting acute and community wards.

Total attendances topped 7,240, including 2,994 at the Primecare Walk-in Centre, whose figures were not included last year.

The department was operating at a daily average of 136 attendances a day – up from 132 in February - compared to its design capacity average of 125.

No day fell below 117 attendances and only five had attendances at or below 125.

There were three 12 hour trolley breaches, all on the same day,  contributing to 14 over the year.

March pressures meant 25 operations were cancelled on the day of surgery and another 53 the day before.

On the wards, the average number of patients staying over 30 days was up to 42 from 37 in February.

Daily numbers ranged from 32 to 56.

One ward had to be switched from elective to emergency use over Easter.

The trust refers to March mapping that indicates an easing of the pressure that has twice seen senior management declare internal incidents - the point at which pressures on emergency activity present a serious threat to services - since January.

That mapping shows A&E attendances down on both planned figures and those for March last year.

But, while attendances are down on plan (-229) for the third month in a row, they are above plan for the total financial year by 2.9 per cent (1,476) and above the total for the previous financial year (4.4 per cent or 2,156).

Emergency activity was again above plan (6.5 per cent or 106), as was the case each month in the financial year. Total activity was above plan by 13.5 per cent (2,589).

The trust says several measures, although not meeting targets, have shown some improvement in trend over the year, specifically around time of arrival by ambulance to triage and time of arrival to discharge.

Although urgent care flow continued to be affected by outside factors such as norovirus ward closures, the trust assesses several care quality indicators around arrival assessment and treatment times as improved compared to February.

* WYE Valley NHS Trust has submitted a planning application for a temporary single storey 16-bed adult acute ward on the current mortuary car-park.

 The application is the first related to a five-phase “re-build” scheme for the county hospital reported by the Hereford Times in January.