All region's hospitals miss A&E waiting time target
Video report by Leah Magras.
All hospitals in our region fell short of the NHS's waiting times target for Accident and Emergency last month.
The health service aims to see 95% of patients admitted, transferred or discharged within 4 hours of their arrival at an A&E department.
But new figures from NHS England reveal none of our region's hospitals met that target last month.
The England average for September was 75.2%.
The lowest figure in England was recorded by the North Lincolnshire and Goole Trust, where just over 53% of people were seen within four hours.
Sue Atkin's 27 year old son died after being told he faced a four hour wait to be seen at Lincoln County Hospital.
She said: "He grabbed hold of my arm, he says 'help me mum' and he collapsed. And that was it. He'd gone."
Sue says at this point the staff did everything they could to help him - but they couldn't revive him.
"It's horrible - I just don't want anybody else to go through what I went through" she said.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust says it has seen extreme demands on its urgent care services in recent weeks. It says it is unable to comment on individual cases, but offered condolences to the friends and family of Mr Barker.
Harrogate was the closest trust in our region to achieving the operational standard, with 83.9% of patients seen within four hours.
Both Yorkshire Ambulance Service and East Midlands Ambulance also missed the target of getting to the most serious emergency calls within seven minutes.
Both services were just over the England average of 9 minutes and 1 second.
In Grimsby, when Steve Beasant called for an ambulance after his wife collapsed, they had to wait ten hours for paramedics to arrive.
He said: "I heard such a clatter downstairs, I thought something has happened here. My heart was thumping because I thought potentially she's had another stroke. I rung up the ambulance around 6:15 because I couldn't get my wife off the floor. And we were just waiting hours upon hours for an ambulance to arrive."
East Midlands Ambulance Service has apologised for the delay and acknowledges that the service is under strain.
NHS England figures show that A&E attendances at hospitals in England last month were 26% higher than a year ago at 2.1 million - the highest number of attendances in September in records going back to 2010.
Emergency admissions to A&E departments at hospitals in England stood at 506,916 in September 2021, up from 479,855 in September 2020.
Professor Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director said : "There is no doubt the NHS is running hot, with the highest ever number of patients seen in A&E in September, 14 times as many Covid patients in hospital compared to the same month last year and a record 999 ambulance calls.
"But despite the busiest September on record, NHS staff have moved heaven and earth to make the best possible use of additional investment delivering millions more tests, checks, treatments and operations.
"That is why it is really important people do not delay seeking help from the NHS if they feel unwell."