THE weekly A&E figures for the weeks ending December 21^st 2014 and December 28^th 2014 have been published today.

Commenting on the figures, Dr Sarah Pinto-Duschinsky, Director of Operations and delivery for NHS England, said:

“Today’s figures show that in the three months to the end of December more than nine out of 10 A&E patients in England continued to be seen and treated in under four hours – the best measured performance of any major western country.

“In the immediate run up to Christmas the NHS treated 446,500 A&E attendees, up 38,000 on the same week last year. And there were 112,600 emergency admissions – the highest number in a single week since we started publishing performance figures in 2010.

“We faced similar demand over Christmas itself. In the week ending December 28^th A&E attendances were up more than 31,000 on the same period last year, meaning we successfully treated more patients in under four hours than ever before.”