BRADFORD Royal Infirmary and Airedale Hospital missed the target for seeing accident and emergency patients within four hours during Christmas week, new figures show.

In the week ending December 28, Airedale A&E staff saw 85.3 per cent of patients within the time period - the NHS target is 95 per cent.

The figure put Airedale only just out of the top ten worst-performing A&E departments in the country - with Ashford and St Peters Hospital NHS Trust in tenth with 84.6 per cent.

Airedale's updated A&E department opened at the start of last month, costing £6.3 million.

BRI performed better over Christmas but still missed the target - seeing 94.2 per cent of 2,496 patients in four hours or less.

BRI came 17th in the list of 140 Trusts, with only 13 beating the 95 per cent target. BRI's figure was also an improvement on the numbers for the rest of December.

Airedale's figure represented a big drop from the other weeks in December, and also from its average for between October 5 and December 28, which was 94.5 per cent. Throughout December, Airedale's weekly statistics varied from 91.2 per cent to 94 per cent.

Stacey Hunter, director of operations at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We have had an extremely busy Christmas and New Year period and we apologise to people who have attended our A&E and had to wait longer than we would have liked due to the number of people seeking help - we saw over 1,000 people in our Emergency Department during Christmas week alone.

“We are also seeing more patients who are sicker than usual and need to be admitted to hospital so it is an increase in urgent admissions, not just A&E attendances, that is making the hospital busier than normal for the time of year."

At BRI, 93 per cent ofA&E patients were seen within four hours between October 5 and December 28. During the first three weeks of December, the weekly figures varied from 86.3 per cent to 91 per cent.

The Foundation Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, Helen Barker, said: "Like other parts of the NHS, we have seen significant increases in demand over the last few weeks which staff responded to fantastically by providing extra provision, particularly at weekends and out-of-hours.

"Additional capacity has been created to cope with this influx of extremely sick patients and our staff have worked tirelessly to ensure that we have offered safe care and the best patient experience we could provide.

"I commend our staff who have gone the extra the mile for patients as it has been a real team effort."

She said the Trust was still seeing high rates of attendances from patients who should have gone to their pharmacist or GP.

The figures were revealed by NHS England.