TWO patients were left waiting outside Great Western Hospital A&E for more than an hour on Boxing Day.

The new figures, shared by NHS chiefs, were published as GWH directors discussed plans to tackle winter pressures at the Marlborough Road hospital. 

This week, NHS England announced plans to delay all non-emergency operations until February. Routine appointments may also be cancelled.

However, this evening GWH told patients to come to appointments as normal - unless they had heard otherwise.

The NHS cancellations are expected to hit GWH’s budget – but have been deemed “absolutely required” to ease congestion in the hospital.

At a meeting of the hospital’s board of directors, chief executive Nerissa Vaughan said that they were working out how to deliver the NHS plans.

She said: “What I don’t want is to cancel operations and then not redeploy staff, because there’s no benefit. We’ve got to make sure we’re doing it sensibly. We’re working those things through.” 

However, there were concerns that the financial cost of postponing non-emergency surgery and routine appointments could be significant – depriving the hospital of income from NHS commissioners in January.

Karen Johnson, finance director, said that the hospital was used to the winter squeeze forcing cancelled appointments. “This is not something new,” she said.

Chief operating officer Jim O’Connell said that the cancellations would help maintain performance at the emergency department.

He added: “The relief that we absolutely needed in terms of taking the pressure off [the emergency department] by cancelling surgeries is absolutely required.” 

New cash is expected to ease the winter pressures, with Swindon given £1.4million out of an NHS winter fund. 

The money will be used to pay for 26 care home places and to fund extra staff to care for patients.

NHS executives will decide who to send to those care home beds at meetings held three times a week between GWH, Swindon CCG and the borough council. 

These sessions are intended to help move those patients who no longer need hospital treatment into care homes or back into their own homes.

The plans come as patients warned that GWH’s emergency department “looked like a warzone” over the Christmas period. 

Sheila Mitchell said it took doctors 12 hours to treat her husband between Christmas and New Year. 

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, describing patients lying on trolleys pushed to the sides of the corridor.

Lisa Stevens, 42, from Penhill, was left waiting for two hours before she was seen after being involved in a car accident. However, she said of staff: “They were absolutely brilliant.”

Figures released yesterday by NHS England show that on Boxing Day, two patients were left for more than an hour with paramedics outside the emergency department waiting to hand them over to GWH doctors. 

Between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, 18 patients were left waiting with ambulance staff for between 30 minutes and an hour.

A GWH spokesman said that the ED had been “busy” over Christmas - and that those with less serious injuries would face a longer wait for treatment.