FIGURES revealing accident and emergency waiting times in Portsmouth could have been better if figures from the Royal Hospital Haslar were taken into account, hospital bosses have revealed.

Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Queen Alexandra Hospital (QA) in Cosham, says it would have met its target if it had been allowed to include the performance at Haslar.

The trust was assessed on the percentage of patients attending accident and emergency who were admitted and discharged within four hours.

It narrowly missed out on the 90 per cent target, scoring 87.2 per cent, but say that figure would have been boosted if results from the Gosport hospital were taken into account.

Spokeswoman Pat Forsyth said: "The official figure that we recorded was 87.2 per cent but if Haslar's figures were included then we would have treated 90.4 per cent of people within the four-hour period.

"It does show how valuable Haslar is."

Haslar has repeatedly shrugged off the threat of closure largely due to a massive campaign by local residents demonstrating how vital it still is to the community.

The assessment on both the QA and Haslar was carried out over a week beginning March 23.

It was at a time when the trust was encouraging people to use facilities at Haslar given severe bed pressures at QA combined with a loss of 300 military staff due to the Gulf crisis.

In a statement, the chief executive of the trust, Alan Bedford, said that a significant number of military staff who had left for the war were based in the accident and emergency department.

He said: "The trust expects the impact of the war on emergency services to be taken into account when performance is reviewed."

Mr Bedford also thanked staff for the effort made in trying to meet the target, a core item in the Star Rating tables.

He said the main problem was admitting people to inpatient beds within four hours.