ALMOST 120 people each month have to wait more than a day in AE for admission to hospital - more than twice the maximum target waiting time of 12 hours, according to new HSE figures.
The HSE's performance monitoring report for September, which was presented to its board earlier this month, shows the average number of patients having to wait more than 24 hours from the time the decision to admit was made until they were placed in a bed increased from almost two people per day last year to four per day for the same period this year.
This equates to almost 120 per month, across the State, waiting twice as long as the official maximum target.
The report says that "broadly, admission wait numbers have remained higher in 2008 than in 2007".
Last year the HSE introduced a target that patients in emergency departments would have to wait no more than a maximum of 12 hours for a bed after the decision to admit was taken. However, the report shows this 12-hour minimum target is also being breached consistently.
The HSE report says that in September, the average number of patients waiting more than 12 hours was 32 compared with 27 for the same period in 2007.
"It is important to again emphasise that this measure looks at the period post decision to admit and patients who did not wait or only waited a short period of time are not captured in this respect," the HSE report states.
The report says the HSE's Winter Initiative Group is continuing to tackle the issue of admission waits in conjunction with local implementation teams at network level.
"The pattern of admission waits appears to be that hospitals with little or no admission waits continue to experience the same pattern but major centres with large numbers of admission waits have experienced increased numbers awaiting admission," it states.
The report also reveals that the HSE is moving towards measuring the time patients have to wait in emergency departments from the time they arrive rather than from when a decision is made to admit. This data is available at present from only a limited number of hospitals.
However, the report shows that based on these limited figures, the average overall waiting time for those not requiring admission is four hours but that there are wide variations between centres.
The report says that about 75 per cent of patients presenting at emergency departments will not require admission and can be treated and discharged directly. It says the vast majority of such patients are assessed, triaged and discharged within a relatively short period of time.
The report says the average time such patients will spend in total in AE ranges (approximately) from 2.7 hours in Letterkenny to seven hours in Beaumont and St James's hospitals.
However, for those who do require admission to a bed, the average waiting time is much longer. "For the 25 per cent of patients who require admission, the total wait time once the person arrives in the emergency department to actual admission to a bed in a ward varies from approximately 2.3 hours in Letterkenny to 28 hours in Beaumont Hospital. However, in many hospitals, the average time experienced by patients is approximately seven hours."