More than a third of patients seeking the most serious A&E care at the Salisbury Trust waited longer than four hours to be seen last month, figures show.

NHS guidance states that 95 per cent of patients attending accident and emergency departments should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

But Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust fell well behind that target in May, when just 64 per cent of the 4,470 attendances at type 1 A&E departments were seen within four hours, according to figures from NHS England.

Type 1 departments are those which provide major emergency services – with full resuscitation equipment and 24-hour consultant-led care – and account for the majority of attendances nationally.

It means 36 per cent of patients seeking the most urgent care at the Salisbury Trust waited too long to be seen last month, compared to 43 per cent in April, and 21% in May 2021.

Including the 2,105 attendances at other accident and emergency departments, such as minor A&Es and those with single specialties, 75 per cent of A&E patients were seen by the trust within the target time in May.

At Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust in May:

There were 205 booked appointments, up from 172 in April

446 patients waited longer than four hours for treatment following a decision to admit – seven per cent of patients

Of those, seven were delayed by more than 12 hours

Separate NHS Digital data reveals that in March:

The median time to treatment was 100 minutes. The median average is used to ensure figures are not skewed by particularly long or short waiting times

Around five per cent of patients left before being treated