Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron visited Epsom and St Helier hospital ahead of the winter period.

The Westmoreland and Lonsdale MP was joined by Tom Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington, and former leadership contender Norman Lamb where they were told about the hospital’s increase in admissions.

A&E departments in Epsom and St Helier have registered more than 148, 532 patients, an increase of 8,000 people from this time last year, with 140,495 people coming through their doors.

However, Staff were able to treat, see or discharge 95.3 per cent of patients within four hours despite the increase.

Chief Executive Daniel Elkeles, who was on hand to greet the politicians and introduce them to key members of staff as they went on a tour of A&E, said: “We were absolutely delighted to welcome Tim, Tom and Norman to our hospital, and I would like to thank them for taking time out of their busy schedules to come and find out more about the work that we do.

“We have seen a significant rise in the number of patients coming through our doors, and we expect to face another surge in demand over the coming winter months. We have put a number of measures in place to make sure that we can keep up with the pace and continue to care for our patients in a compassionate and timely way, and I’m pleased to say that the steps we have taken seem to be paying off.

“Importantly, these measures aren’t just in our A&Es, we can only achieve the standards expected of us with sterling support from all of our teams behind the scenes, and we wanted to shout about that too.”

Chief Operating Officer Caroline Landan said: “It takes a huge amount of hard work to keep our hospitals running smoothly 24/7, and so we were really pleased to be able to share the details of our strong performance with the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

“Although we are performing well, our hospitals are very busy, and so I would encourage local people not to come to A&E unless it is an emergency.”

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