HOSPITAL bosses and ambulance chiefs in Lancashire have pledged to do more to tackle waiting times for patients after failing to reach targets.

Latest figures for A&E attendances at Royal Blackburn Hospital failed to meet a 95 per cent benchmark for 12 months.

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And with the demand for A&E services again reaching a peak this week, it has emerged that the performance rating has dipped further over the past few months for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust.

Meanwhile, North West Ambulance Service reached its response-time targets across the region, but not in Lancashire and Cumbria.

Against a 75 per cent target of Red 1 calls required to be answered within eight minutes, only 71.5 per cent were reached for the two counties. This was just 69 per cent for Red 2 alerts, which should be met within 19 minutes.

Ambulance chiefs said they experience more difficulties in answering emergency calls in more rural counties.

Sarah Faulkner, the ambulance trust’s quality director, said in a report: “Performance is more challenging in rural counties. Where there is a lower population density and longer journey times, performance is adversely affected. We are working with clinical commissioning groups and agencies such as the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance, the police and fire service to deliver the best solutions for communities.”

The overall North West performance ranks NWAS second for Red 1 calls and third for Red 2 calls, out of the 10 national ambulance trusts. Board members were told the ambulance service would also be working with hospitals to combat a large percentage of resource time lost during handovers at casualty centres. The Royal Blackburn is acknowledged as the busiest such location in the North West.

Gill Simpson, ELHT’s operations director, said in the latest board report: “The number of (ambulance) handovers over 30 minutes has increased to 701 for May, compared to 630 for April.”

Hospitals’ chief executive Kevin McGee, in his monthly update, said: “The trust has had a challenging few weeks in dealing with 999 demand.”