Waiting times at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary’s A&E have been slashed.

Patients attending the infirmary are now being treated quicker than Calderdale ones for the first time in years thanks to a revolutionary way of working.

A new system of having senior doctors assessing patients as soon as possible has helped Huddersfield’s A&E to slash more than 30 minutes off its “time to treatment decision” figures.

The system, launched in January, has reversed a trend of HRI doctors taking twice as long as their colleagues at Halifax’s Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH).

Over the course of 2013/14 patients at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI) had to wait more than twice as long as those at Halifax’s Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH) for a decision on their treatment.

The biggest disparity occurred in May 2013 when Huddersfield patients waited on average one hour and nine minutes for doctors and nurses to decide what care they needed, compared to 27 minutes at CRH.

But figures for March show patients at HRI waited just 21 minutes for a treatment decision, seven minutes less than those at CRH.

Clinical head of A&E, Dr Mark Davies, hailed the results.

He said: “We introduced a new way of assessing unwell patients by a dedicated assessment team.

“This has demonstrated the improvement we were hoping to achieve.

“We are continually looking to improve the way we care for patients in A&E.”

The new way of working involves the most senior doctors “eyeballing” patients straight away rather than several hours into their stay.

The speedy new system means on average patients are in and out of the door within one hour, compared with over two hours with the traditional triage system.

The rapid assessment of patients has also been boosted by new handheld bedside blood-testing machines - which cuts the wait for crucial results from over an hour to just two minutes.

Doctors have found the redesigned system gives better outcomes for the sickest patients and appears to reduce the amount of deaths.

Halifax Labour MP Linda Riordan said: “Both Halifax and Huddersfield have first class A&E departments.

“The reality is that treatment times will increase dramatically if either A&E unit closes.

“This is not about pitting one hospital against the other but ensuring both A&Es are saved.

“We need to stop the callous closure proposal and make saving lives, not saving money, the priority for health policy.”

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