BOSSES at Furness General Hospital have insisted their staff work hard to treat A&E patients, despite missing national targets for waiting times.

Newly-released figures for last month showed one in five patients who visited accident and emergencies at the Morecambe Bay hospital trust was there more than four hours from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.

The trust-wide figure of 81 per cent fails to meet government targets of 95 per cent of patients being treated within four hours.

Nationally, figures showed the worst rates on record since the targets were brought in in 2004.

According to the hospital trust in charge of FGH, more than 3,000 people attended the hospital’s emergency department and 85 per cent of those were seen, treated and either discharged or admitted within four hours.

A spokeswoman said: “Our staff work extremely hard each and every day to ensure that people attending our Emergency Department in Barrow receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.

“Our teams assess each patient as they come through the door and we apologise that some people may have to wait.

“This is because clinicians will be treating patients in order of clinical need, rather than ‘on a first come first served’ basis.”

Barrow and Furness Labour candidate Chris Altree said: “The last decade of this Conservative-led government has seen our NHS driven into the ground, with the tightest financial squeeze in its history and the waiting time figures for the Morecambe Bay Trust are truly shocking.

“A halt on recruitment - directly linked to the government telling the trust to reduce its spending deficit - has just made things worse for patients and staff.”

Conservative candidate Simon Fell said: “This is why it’s essential that our hospitals are given the sustained funding they need and that it is directed to the front line.

“We’ve agreed with the NHS Chief Exec the single largest investment into the NHS ever and locally we’ve put in seed funding for new resource at Barrow and Lancaster.

“I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment that this money is spent on the front line so that waiting times are reduced and out local NHS has the resources it needs.”