LONGER waits in Bradford’s A&E department show "the crisis the NHS is facing" under the Coalition, Labour has claimed.
The Opposition said official figures revealed more than 30,000 patients waiting more than four hours to be seen across England in a single week - a rise of more than 50 per cent on the same week last year.
And among the hospitals where more patients are waiting longer than the target time in casualty is Bradford Royal Infirmary, run by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The number waiting more than four hours in Bradford more than doubled from 51 in the second week of April last year to 121 in the equivalent week this month, Labour said.
And 14 patients had to wait between four and 12 hours for a ward bed on a trolley - up from six last year.
Speaking with the Telegraph & Argus, Andy Burnham, Labour’s health spokesman, said the figures revealed a “worrying slump in A&E performance in the last 12 months”.
But the Conservatives said more money was being pumped into hospitals and most people were seen with four hours.
Mr Burnham said he was not blaming individual hospitals, or their staff, who were “working flat out in almost-impossible circumstances”.
Instead, he said: “David Cameron caused this A&E crisis by making it harder to get a GP appointment, cutting care budgets to the bone and wasting £3bn on a damaging reorganisation.”
The statistics are for the week ending on Sunday April 13, compared with the equivalent week of 2014, which ended on April 12 last year.
Labour has faced criticism because much of the cash for its planned £2.5 billion Time to Care fund, to recruit extra NHS staff, will not flow through until later in the next parliament.
But Mr Burnham said "hundreds of millions" would be spent immediately after an election victory – boosting nurse recruitment, putting a GP in every A&E department and staffing the NHS 111 advice line.
He said: "We will be taking immediate steps. We are the only party with a funded rescue plan for the NHS."
But a Conservative spokesman said that - while pressure on the NHS was “unprecedented” - well over nine out of every ten patients were being seen within four hours of arrival.
He added: “We have increased funding by over £7bn a year and gave hospitals a record £700m over the winter to help them cope with the increased pressures of an aging population.”
A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “We are the only party with a credible plan to invest the £8bn per year that NHS bosses say it needs by 2020.”
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was asked to comment on the statistics, but was unable to do so.
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