AN average of more than 1,000 patients a month have waited longer than the standard four hours to be dealt with in Gwent’s A&E units since April, new figures reveal.

During the six months taking in April-September, 6,425 patients attending units at the Royal Gwent and Nevill Hall Hospitals waited longer than four hours.

The figures ranged from 1,330 patients in April, to 888 in August.

Ninety-five per cent of people attending emergency units should be dealt with inside four hours, according to Welsh Government targets, which have proved elusive across Wales for several years, except for the occasional month at individual hospitals.

The overall figures for health boards also include performance at minor injury units, which tends to be higher.

In September, the latest month for which figures are available, 92.4 per cent of patients attending all emergency departments in Gwent were dealt with inside four hours.

But the overall figure includes the emergency department at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr and the minor injuries unit at Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan. Combined, the four-hour performance at these units was 98.6 per cent for September.

At the two major A&E units however, the September four-hour performance was 90 per cent, meaning one-in-10 patients waited longer than four hours.

Units in Gwent, indeed across Wales, are still struggling to meet targets, in part because A&E is used as a venue of first resort by too many patients whose illness or injury would best be treated elsewhere, for instance at a minor injuries unit, through their GP, or self-treated.

There is also the issue of increasing numbers of ‘majors’ cases coming into A&E, many by ambulance. These are mainly elderly and often they come with several underlying health conditions.

While overall A&E attendance has fallen slightly in recent times, the proportion of complex ‘majors’ cases involving elderly patients (over-75s) with multiple health problems has increased, in Gwent by 18 per cent in the last five years.

The resources diverted to deal with these cases often has a knock-on effect of longer waits for other patients in A&E, lengthening waiting times for many.

Waits for longer than 12 hours in A&E is also a high profile issue at the moment. Though these can often make up less than one per cent of the total A&E attendance in any given month, such lengthy waits for treatment are deemed unacceptable. In Gwent in September, 156 patients waited more than 12 hours to be dealt with.