Northumbria has best A&E waiting times in the county

The trust is ranked number one out of 133 trusts for April for performance against the national standard of 95 per cent, representing a significant increase from March, when Northumbria was placed 13th.

The figures take into account The Northumbria hospital at Cramlington, urgent care centres and minor-injury units and come after an extremely busy winter period where demand for services soared.

Ellie Monkhouse, at Northumbria Healthcare, said: “We are absolutely delighted. Even during the extremely busy winter period, we were consistently one of the top trusts, however, we were always striving to do better to ensure more of our patients were seen earlier, and we are pleased to now be ranked first. It has been a real team effort.

“I’d like to make a plea for people to continue to make use of GP and local pharmacy services to ensure that our A&E teams are there to treat those most in need.”

Over the last few weeks, the trust has made changes at The Northumbria hospital to improve the flow of patients in its emergency department which has included creating an environment to better support the handover of patients from ambulances and a new zone to treat those who do not require admission to hospital.