Waiting times for a bed at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital have increased to almost 15 hours on average for Emergency Department patients, new figures reveal.

A survey of admissions in the two-week period between May 22 and June 4 showed the worst day to be May 27 when people had to wait an average of 26 hours for an inpatient bed.

While this was lower than the peak one-day average wait of 37 hours recorded in the previous fortnight, overall the typical waiting time across the period was 14.9 hours, up from 12.6 hours.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board said that while Emergency Department visits rose slightly to 1,350 in the two weeks surveyed, wait times for triage, seeing a doctor and the length of stay in the department all improved.

The figures come as the hospital conducts an inquiry into the treatment of a 76-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease and pneumonia who was left waiting for an inpatient bed for more than two days in May.

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A BHB spokeswoman said of the latest survey: “The average time it took from arrival to being triaged over the two weeks went down to 15 minutes, compared to 20 minutes in the previous two weeks.

“The average time to see a doctor was 58 minutes compared to 1.3 hours and the total time spent in emergency from arrival to discharge for all patients was 3.5 hours compared to four hours.

“While the emergency department wait times improved, issues related to discharging patients still continued to impact patients in emergency who need to be admitted to an inpatient ward along with an increased number of admissions.

“There were 29 more admissions in this two week period — a 16 per cent increase — with 210 people admitted compared to 181 in the two weeks before.

“Over this two-week period the day with the highest median wait from the decision to admit to leaving emergency was on 27 May at 26 hours, or just over one day, which was lower than the highest median day the previous period of 36.9 hours.

“However, over the two-week period, the daily average time from the decision to admit to the patient leaving emergency increased by over two hours overall to a daily average of 891 minutes or 14.9 hours, compared to 754 minutes or 12.6 hours in the prior period.”

The spokeswoman added: “With another public holiday in this two-week period on 26 May, outpatient visits increased slightly to 2,875 from 2,626 in the prior period, but the number of surgeries remained roughly equivalent — 318 compared to 320 in the prior two weeks.”