Queen Alexandra Hospital A&E improvements satisfy inspectors

Patients sometimes had to wait as long as 14 hours to be admitted to a ward, inspectors said

Urgent improvements demanded in the A&E department of a Portsmouth hospital have been made, inspectors have said.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited the Queen Alexandra Hospital on 25 April after failings were identified during an inspection in February.

These included patients waiting up to 14 hours to be admitted to a ward.

England's chief inspector of hospitals said the most serious concerns had now been addressed. Hospital bosses agreed though there was still work to do.

Chief inspector Prof Sir Mike Richards, said: "Some patients are still having to wait too long to be admitted and I expect the trust to address this as a priority."

During the inspection in February inspectors intervened to stop two patients on trolleys colliding in a corridor.

'Significant improvements'

In April, the average waiting time between patients being brought to hospital by ambulance and receiving an initial assessment had fallen from 25 minutes to within the national average of 15 minutes.

However, the CQC noted some patients had to wait for more than an hour to be assessed and there were still delays to see specialist doctors.

Ursula Ward, chief executive of Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "We have made significant improvements within the Emergency Department, despite continuing to see exceptionally high rates of attendances and high acuity of our patients.

"We know that there is still work to do, and we are progressing with a detailed action plan to continue our programme of improvements."

The hospital trust as a whole received a rating of "outstanding", from the CQC.