Royal Bolton A&E attendances up by 800 people a month

Royal Bolton Hospital is also seeing more and more people arriving later in the day creating pressures on the system.

One of the hospital trust's health bosses noted at a meeting they had seen an influx of children one evening last week.

Andy Ennis, chief operating officer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, said: "The night of Wednesday, June 27 was unusual because we had 20 children in A&E at 10pm. We have no evidence in terms of why there was a surge.

"However, we are seeing a shift over a longer period of patients coming over the evening which causes more pressure on the hospital system. Attendances are rising steadily and there is a pattern where patients (adults and children) are tending to come later in the day which causes capacity issues.”

At a board meeting last week trust bosses discussed the increasing numbers of people arriving at A&E and Mr Ennis revealed that 800 more patients were arriving each month that two years ago.

He said: "Admissions aren't going up but there's more work in A&E."

He told the board the hospital receives an average of 88 ambulances a day and the record was 117.

Chief executive Jackie Bene said: "We're getting high attendances and we don't know why."

Board chairman David Wakefield said: "It's very clear if you live in Farnworth you're far more likely to use A&E than those in Westhoughton. There's social and economic factors too.

"Eastern Europeans culturally their A&E is their primary care facility, the GPs try and contact them but that's culturally the way they use A&E."

Ms Bene told the board around half of the ambulances that arrive at A&E could be treated elsewhere and that work needed to be done to reduces A&E attendances and the number arriving by ambulance.

She said work was being done between the North West Ambulance Service and BARDOC, which provides out of hours doctors for Bolton, to try and divert less serious ambulance calls away from A&E to more suitable services.