HOSPITALS will hit A&E waiting time targets despite a recent blip, say health chiefs.

Hospitals in Worcestershire missed their waiting time target last year but the latest statistics suggest performance has improved this year, although there was a slight blip last month.

The Government says 98 per cent of all emergency patients should be seen, treated, admitted or discharged within four hours at hospitals across the country.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust failed this target in 2007/08 when the figure was 96 per cent across the county’s three main hospitals, including Worcestershire Royal.

But this July (the latest figures available) showed this was up to 99 per cent.

For the year so far (March-July), the trust has hit the target 98 per cent of the time.

A total of 58,882 A&E patients were seen within four hours during this period while 1,003 had to wait more than four hours to be seen, treated, admitted or discharged.

Hitting the target is one of the criteria for the acute trust becoming a Foundation Trust by May 2009, which will give it more control over its finances and allow the public more of a say in its running.

Clive Walsh, director of operations for the trust, said: “In one week in August we had as many breaches as we did in the whole of July.

“It’s one of those things we can’t afford to slip up on. But we can still achieve the target for the year. The number of breaches this year is recoverable.”

On A&E targets the trust has moved from “amber” in April to “green” between May and July.

There has also been a fall in the number of cancelled operations across the trust.

A total of 31 patients had their operations (0.77 per cent) cancelled in July, which meant the trust hit its target to cancel fewer than 0.8 per cent of operations.

This is an improvement on last year’s figures (2007/08) when 0.99 per cent of patients (457 people) had their operations cancelled.