Whipps Cross Hospital has been awarded more than £600,000 in funding to combat pressure on its A&E department this winter.

The Department of Health has announced this week which hospitals in England will receive part of a £56 million funding boost for emergency units later this year.

The Leytonstone hospital was one of 70 nationwide to receive a grant and has been given an extra £617,874 to ease pressure on A&E during busy winter months.

Barts Health Trust, which operates Whipps Cross, said the funding will be used to meet the government target of admitting, treating, or discharging 95 per cent of patients within four hours.

In January this year, the hospital managed to either treat or discharge 81 per cent of its A&E patients within the four-hour target.

Barts Health, which runs three A&E units in east London including Whipps Cross, is now seeing 2,000 extra patients each month than it did last year.

The emergency unit is likely to become even busier if plans go ahead to close the A&E department at King George Hospital in Goodmayes.

Alastair Finney, Barts Health strategy programme director, told the Guardian further pressure would be put on Whipps Cross if the the A&E unit at King George was to close.

Mr Finney added: “King George is not as busy as Whipps Cross, nor is it as busy as Queens Hospital in Romford.

“For Barts Health, there will be a small impact on Newham Hospital and a slightly larger impact on Whipps Cross.

“We believe [shutting King George A&E] is the right thing to do in terms of clinical outcomes, but we recognise there will be a challenge at Whipps Cross.

“One guarantee I can make is that changes will not take place unless clinicians at Whipps Cross are 100 per cent confident changes will not add any further risk to the way we treat out patients here.”