Bed waiting times for emergency department patients at the hospital have continued to rise, new figures reveal.

In the fortnight from June 5 to 18, the average period people were left without an inpatient bed at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital was 17.4 hours.

This is a rise from the average of 14.9 hours in the previous fortnight, and up from the 12.6 hours recorded in the two-week period before that.

The latest figures show that on seven of the 14 days monitored, people had to wait an average of more than 20 hours, with delays peaking at an average of 24.1 hours on June 13.

The Bermuda Hospitals Board said that emergency department visits for the two-week period were down 52 on the previous fortnight, standing at 1,298.

A spokeswoman said: “While admission numbers also decreased by 37, from 210 to 173, BHB has a high number of patients who are ready for discharge but are experiencing delays.

“This relates to a lack of community services and not enough nursing-home placements.

“In an audit undertaken on Thursday, June 22, there were 25 patients in acute care beds who no longer needed hospital services, but who were experiencing delays to their discharge.

“This translates to nearly one out of the three acute care units being unavailable to patients in emergency who need beds.

“The issues relating to discharging patients back to the community increased wait times for an acute care bed for patients in emergency.

“Over this two-week period, the day with the highest median wait from the decision to admit to leaving emergency was lower than the previous two weeks.

“However, over the two-week period, the daily average time from the decision to admit to the patient leaving emergency increased by 2.5 hours overall to a daily average of 1,047 minutes, or 17.4 hours, compared to 891 minutes, or 14.9 hours, in the prior period.

“Wait times for triage, seeing a doctor and the length of stay in the department did not change significantly in this two-week period.

“The average time it took from arrival to being triaged over the two weeks increase by one minute to 16 minute, compared to 15 minutes in the previous two weeks.

“The average time to see a doctor was 59 minutes compared to 58 minutes and the total time spent in emergency from arrival to discharge for all patients was 3.8 hours compared to 3.5 hours.”

The figures were released as the BHB was set to complete an inquiry into how a 76-year-old man with Parkinson’s disease and pneumonia was left without an inpatient bed for 53 hours in May.

After failing to acknowledge a formal complaint from the man’s family for two weeks, the BHB said it would complete its inquiries by the end of this month.