HEALTH chiefs in Swindon are pulling out the stops to meet stringent government targets on accident and emergency waiting times.

The Department of Health has ordered that by the end of the month, 90 per cent of casualty cases should be seen within four hours.

But latest figures show that 27 per cent of the 4,405 patients who passed through the Great Western Hospital's A&E department faced a delay of more than four hours during January.

The figure is higher than the national average of 22 per cent of A&E patients who waited more than four hours.

But Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust directors say that they will do all they can to meet the targets which also stipulate that no patients should face waits of four hours or more by March next year.

Hospital trust human resources director Paul Bentley said: "The trust wants to meet the targets and the move to this new hospital will help us achieve this because it is designed with this in mind.

"We already initially assess patients very early and we are working hard to achieve the target.

"The figures show that we are moving in the right direction."

He explained that the number of people waiting more than four hours has decreased by about 40 per cent since last year.

"These are demanding targets and while they are a useful tool, we don't want to become a slave to them. We will not let meeting targets get in the way of clinical priorities."

A recent BMA report found that 20 per cent of A&E departments reported waits of more than 24 hours.

And it claimed that focussing on the length of time between arrival and the decision to admit a patient hid the length of time waited before a bed was found.