WAITING times in accident and emergency departments in England have plummeted to their worst levels in more than a decade, with just 92.6 per cent of patients being seen within four hours.

NHS England released records showing it has failed to meet the target of seeing 95 per cent of patients within the time limit as the Government admitted there was a "huge amount of pressure" on the health service.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said hospital bosses feel they are "running just to keep still" to cope with rising demand.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "There is a huge amount of pressure, that's absolutely clear."

But he added: "I think we also have to recognise, despite the particular pressures, despite the major incidents - and you always get some major incidents at this time of year - that the NHS is continuing to see in A&E departments nine out of 10 people within the four-hour target.

"That is actually better than any other country in the world that measures these things."

Yesterday, several hospitals, including Scarborough in North Yorkshire, declared major incidents as they struggled to cope with unprecedented demand for services.

The latest figures are a marked fall on the worst performance recorded since the Coalition came to power of 94.1 per cent at the start of 2013 and is the lowest recorded over the last ten years.

When broken down, the quarterly records show the country's major A&E departments fared even worse, with fewer than nine in ten patients - 88.9 per cent - being seen within the target.

Dr Sarah Pinto-Duschinsky, director of operations and delivery for NHS England, said: "Today's figures show that, in the three months to the end of December, more than nine out of ten A&E patients in England continued to be seen and treated in under four hours - the best measured performance of any major Western country.

"In the immediate run-up to Christmas, the NHS treated 446,500 A&E attendees, up 38,000 on the same week last year. And there were 112,600 emergency admissions - the highest number in a single week since we started publishing performance figures in 2010.

"We faced similar demand over Christmas itself. In the week ending December 28 A&E attendances were up more than 31,000 on the same period last year, meaning we successfully treated more patients in under four hours than ever before."