Waiting times at a busy hospital accident and emergency department are improving.
The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton came under increased pressure earlier this year as it struggled to cope with a high number of patients and a shortage of beds.
It led to some patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E and a critical report by Government inspectors from the Care Quality Commission.
However Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has brought in a series of changes and improvements and patients are now passing through A&E more quickly.
A report to Brighton and Hove City Council’s health and wellbeing committee said there had been no breaches since April of the rule that says patients must not wait more than 12 hours for a bed once a decision had been made to admit them.
The report by the trust said it was now focusing on continuing to improve waiting times and how it would deal with winter pressures.
The trust is working with the Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and South East Coast Ambulance service to try to tackle the number of people coming into A&E each day.
The report said there was a wide variation in the number of patients visitingA&Eevery day and a significant number were coming in when they could have been treated elsewhere.
The report said: “The more we can understand this variation the better we can influence it through the work that CCGand partners are doing so admission to hospital becomes the exception.”
The trust also wants to expand its new hospital rapid discharge team, which works to send patients directly home from A&E without the need to admit them.
Other areas being looked at include developing more services in the community to prevent patients having to be admitted in the first place.
The committee meeting takes place on Tuesday at 4pm at Hove Town Hall.
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