More than 15,000 people waited four hours or more in A&E at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust last year, according to NHS England.

The trust’s major A&E department is performing very badly against the NHS national standard for waiting times in A&E.

The NHS target is for 95 per cent of people visiting A&E to be discharged, transferred or admitted to a ward within four hours of arriving.

At the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust that figure was just 82 per cent.

The 2017-18 report shows that the trust’s major A&E department saw the equivalent of 243 people a day last year. Around 88,500 people went to A&E, up from 88,100 the previous year.

Of these, 15,690 waited for more than four hours, from arriving in A&E to being discharged, transferred or admitted to a ward.

Dr Chris Moulton, vice president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that the pressure on A&E has “spiralled out of control”.

“If you keep stretching an elastic band, eventually it will snap,” he said. “You don’t ask ‘why did the elastic band snap’ - it snapped because you stretched it.”

He said that A&E departments were struggling to cope with the demands of a growing and ageing population, particularly since a lack of social care beds keeps elderly patients waiting in A&E.

He said that the more “badly stretched and understaffed” departments were, the more difficult it is to recruit junior doctors, creating a “vicious circle” of staff shortages.

According to Dr Moulton, the solution is simple - more acute hospital beds, increased capacity in social care, and the staff and facilities to keep those beds open.

He said: “It’s not a magic formula. It’s a blindingly obvious solution.”

Independent health charity the King’s Fund said that A&E performance is a “barometer for the overall performance of the health and care system”.

In England there were 23.8m visits to emergency departments last year, including urgent care centres, minor injury units and walk-in centres as well as major A&Es.

Of these, 88 per cent spent four hours or less in A&E. This figure has been steadily decreasing - the last time the 95 per cent standard was met was in 2013-14.

Commenting on the national figures, an NHS spokesman said: “Minor injuries have fuelled a significant rise in A&E visits over the last decade.

“Yet against this backdrop, and with pressures increased by the hottest summer on record, hard-working NHS staff saw, treated and discharged or admitted 50,000 more patients within four hours last month than August last year.”