Airedale Hospital’s Accident and Emergency department continues to cope with rising patient numbers, according to the trust’s director of service delivery.

Philip Turner said that two of the previous three weeks had seen A&E fail to meet its target of treating at least 98 per cent of its patients within four hours of admission.

He said this was mainly due to a large number of staff sickness absences.

He said in October, the department dealt with 4,318 patients, an increase of 137 on the same period last year.

But he said during the month, A&E did manage to see 98.52 per cent of patients within the four-hour limit He added that delays in discharging some Airedale patients remained an issue, due to a lack of suitable facilities for people who need ongoing treatment outside of hospital.

He said he would soon be meeting with representatives from the primary care trusts and social services to discuss the problem.

He said a full report on delayed discharges should be presented to the board next month.

Rates of infection at Airedale remain low, said Ann Wagner, director of business development and performance. She said so far this financial year there had only been two cases of the MRSA bug. She said there had been no hospital-acquired instances of MRSA since February.

She said there was one case of the Clostridium Difficile infection in October, taking the total for the year to 19. She said at the same time last year, the trust had already recorded seven MRSA infections and 55 Clostridium Difficile cases.