The Spectator

Where were the longest A&E waits?

[Getty Images] 
issue 19 August 2023

The bare platform

A 112-space car park built to serve the railway station in the Cambridgeshire village of Manea was used by just three cars in its first week.

— The station, formerly a ghost station with one train a week, has been revived but even so is only served by two trains every hour.

— Yet had it not been for the Civil War, it could have been the capital of England. Charles I planned an English Versailles there, surrounded by a great city called Charlemont – all built on land reclaimed from the fens. Thanks to the war, however, nothing ever got built.

— The name Charlemont lives on as a cul-de-sac in the village (population 2,000) where you can buy a modest four-bedroom detached house for £400,000.

Earning power

Where do your annual earnings put you on the spectrum of the entire UK adult public?

PERCENTILE

1st £12,700

10th £15,100

20th £16,300

30th £20,100

40th £23,000

50th £26,300

60th £30,500

70th £36,100

80th £44,300

90th £59,200

95th £82,200

96th £91,800

97th £104,000

98th £128,000

99th £183,000

Source: HMRC (figures for 2020/21)

What’s working?

How was productivity per hour worked in the second quarter of this year compared with last year?

SECTOR

Whole economy +0.1%

Construction  +2.3%

Manufacturing +0.5%

Services 0%

Non-manufacturing production -6.1%

Source: ONS

Waiting to be seen

Where in England would you have had the longest, and shortest, wait in A&E in July?

Percentage of patients attended to within four hours:

MOST

Kent and Medway 81.7%

North-West London 80.1%

Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire 79.3%

Somerset 79.2%

FEWEST

Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin 62%

Devon 63.8%

Herefordshire and Worcestershire 64.6%

Dorset 66.5%

Source: NHS Digital

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