Patients at Margate's QEQM hospital faced a 10-hour wait in the accident and emergency department, it has emerged.

The gruelling wait time was confirmed today after patients took to social media to highlight the delays - which is more than twice the four-hour target.

East Kent Hospitals University Trust, which runs the hospital, confirmed the waiting time reached 10 hours last Monday and blamed it on the time of year.

Those who head to A&E have been urged to consider whether they need emergency treatment before showing up.

Chief operating officer Jane Ely said: “The winter pressures facing the NHS have been well-publicised, and hospital trusts in England are experiencing enormous challenges, particularly in emergency care.

“This can mean that patients wait longer than we want them to.

“As we’ve been seeing extra attendance numbers, we’ve managed our staff to make sure that more are available to look after patients, minimising any patient distress.

“But any figures that highlight waiting times have to be seen within context.

'But any figures that highlight waiting times have to be seen within context' - Chief operating officer Jane Ely

“From April to December last year, we’ve seen an increase of more than 5% in numbers of people attending our emergency departments on the previous year - which equates to an average of nearly 30 extra patients presenting every day.

“Patients can help us to ease the pressure by remembering that our emergency departments are for emergencies and life-threatening situations only.”

QEQM's accident and emergency unit was labelled as ‘requires improvement’ in a report issued after the Care Quality Commission inspected the hospital last year.

The report found some systems were not always reliable and delayed discharges caused problems.

But inspectors did find significant improvement in the way the department tailored care to patients' needs.