A troubled east London hospital trust has admitted it is “letting too many patients down”, as new figures show one in five A&E attendees wait more than four hours for treatment.

Barts Health NHS Trust, which operates Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone alongside two other A&E units, is now seeing 2,000 extra patients each month than it did last year.

The trust, which is currently in special measures, has failed to meet the national standard to treat 95 per cent of emergency patients within four hours since July 2014.

In January this year, 81 per cent of A&E patients were seen and either treated or discharged within the four-hour target.

Barts Health chief executive, Alwen Williams, said: “We are seeing record numbers of patients and our staff are pulling out all the stops to keep them safe. 

“In particular, we are using new ways to more efficiently assess and treat people so they can see senior clinicians more quickly.

“Even so, we are letting too many patients down, and need to do more to raise our game and ensure the vast majority of people attending our emergency departments are treated promptly within the national standard.”

The trust said despite a decline against the standard, increasing patient numbers mean more people were still being seen within four hours than in previous years.

Some 67,000 people were treated within four hours between December 2016 and January this year, compared to 63,500 two winters ago.

Meanwhile, Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer has claimed staff at Whipps Cross are struggling to deal with “massive pressures”.

Mr Cryer claimed the government either did not want to spend money on healthcare, or were hoping the public “became so disenchanted” they would back the “radical” move of privatisation.

The MP said: “I visited Whipps Cross in January and it is very clear that the staff there, as at almost all hospitals as far as I can see, are struggling to cope with massive pressures. 

“Many are working inordinately long hours in very difficult conditions.
“This has certainly the worst winter for the NHS in many years and my fear is that there may be more bad news to come.”