ACCIDENT and emergency waiting times at Colchester Hospital improved in October but still fell significantly short of national standards.

New figures from NHS England revealed a total of 81.2 per cent of patients were seen within four hours.

The national benchmark is for 95 per cent.

In September just 77.3 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, making Colchester's A&E performance the second worst in the country.

By October 11 other hospital trusts fared worse than Colchester, including Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust where only 71.6 per cent of patients were treated in the target time.

Others who fared worse than Colchester included Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Harlow, West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.

Performance figures were supplied for 140 of the country's health trusts.

Twenty-one trusts met the 95 per cent target.

A spokesman for Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust, said it was pleased the October data showed an improvement and the figure to date was even better - at 84.8 per cent.

He added: "One of the areas we’ve been focusing on in recent weeks is improving patient flow, assisted by experts from the NHS Emergency Care Improvement Programme (ECIP), a clinically led programme designed to offer intensive practical help and support to urgent and emergency care systems to deliver improvements in quality, safety and patient flow.

"If we can discharge patients sooner, it will free up beds in the hospital sooner so that patients in A&E who needed to be admitted can get onto the wards sooner, which will improve our performance against the national four-hour A&E standard."

The spokesman said the trust was also working closely with partners including Anglian Community Enterprise, Essex County Council and the North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) so ensure patients' wellbeing in winter.

He added: "Since September, all consultant posts in A&E at Colchester General Hospital have been fully staffed. The Trust has a streaming model in place that re-directs patients to other providers including dentists, GPs, Colchester walk-in centre and pharmacies. The Trust is working closely with the CCG to improve the positive streaming of appropriate patients.

"The public can help us by keeping an eye out for elderly relatives, friends and neighbours and by remembering that our Emergency Department should be used only for critical or life-threatening situations requiring medical attention."

In the first six months of 2015/16, this trust’s performance against the national four-hour A&E standard was on average 85.4 per cent.

Its best ever performance was in May when 93.2 per cent of patients were treated.

September - the worst month of the year for A&E performance at the trust - saw a 10 per cent rise in the number of patients brought by ambulance to the emergency department , compared to September 2014.