COLCHESTER General Hospital was the second worst in the England for seeing people within the target time at A&E over the last three months.

The emergency department has missed strict Government waiting times for more than a year.

Of the 17,362 who attended between January and March this year, just 77.7 per cent of patients were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

TheGovernment target is 95 per cent of people.

The Turner Road hospital was beaten only by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust’s 73.8 per cent.

Dr Shane Gordon, chief operating officer at the trust which runs Colchester’s hospitals, admitted performance had dropped over the winter months, but said work is underway to improve it.

A clinical decision unit has now opened in A&E, which allows patients to be admitted for 12 hours while further assessment is carried out.

Alongside it, a surgical assessment unit specialises in assessing if patients will need surgery.

Patients can stay there for up to 12 hours. Together, the units can treat up to 130 patients.

A frail and elderly unit allows patients to stay for up to two days and a new medical day unit is set to open at the end of May.

Admission to each of the new units – which cost about £1million altogether – in four hours means the Government target is met.

Dr Gordon said: “The building work and the disruption does impact on performance, but we are making very specific provision to speed up the delivery of emergency care.

“It has been a very difficult period over the winter, particularly with respiratory infections and we have seen double the number of complex patients – about 280 – come through the hospital, who are very difficult to discharge.

“That means it is very difficult to get people through from A&E into the hospital.”

The last time the quarterly Government target was achieved in Colchester was in the first half of 2013/14.

Last week, Colchester’s figures improved to 81.3 per cent, but the trust was still the third worst in the country. Dr Gordon said on five of the last ten days, more than 90 per cent of patients had been dealt with within the fourhour target.