One in 10 A&E posts left unfilled Major emergency units met the official target to see 95 per cent of patients within four hours on just 41 of 52 weeks between September 2012 and August 2013. At Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust the target was missed for 29,096 patients - an average of 560 per week over the past year. The worst performing trust was University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, which saw just 84 per cent of within four hours, and missed the 95 per cent target on 49 of 52 weeks. The Freedom of Information data on staffing levels, obtained by BBC Radio 5 live, revealed yesterday that Barking, Havering and Redbridge had the worst shortages, with 43 per cent of posts unfilled. Across its two sites, the trust requires 302 staff but needs another 12 consultants, 41 doctors and 75 nurses to reach that level. The trust's chief executive, Averil Dongworth, said: "We are working hard to recruit more permanent staff to our emergency departments. With A&E consultants largely able to pick and choose their employer, this can make it difficult to attract permanent staff. Croydon Health Services, Ealing and North West London Hospitals were the next three trusts with the worst shortages, while the average A&E unit had 9.7 per cent of posts vacant, with the majority being nursing jobs. A separate poll by the Royal College of Nursing found that nine in ten nurses fear patients are being put at risk by low staffing levels. Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said staffing levels in emergency departments represented a "crisis." "The impact for patient care is that there are fewer doctors to see them, which means that most patients may have to wait longer than we would ideally wish them to wait, in order to be seen," he said. Chris Hopson, chief executive of the Foundation Trust Network, told Sky News that lifting Visa restrictions on foreign doctors from outside the EU could help tackle the staffing shortage. "There is a shortage of doctors and nurses, particularly in A&E,"he said. It really is quite a long seated problem. It's clear that for some trusts one way of filling the gap is to recruit doctors and nurses from overseas and ... it does seem rather difficult to navigate through the immigration bureaucracy to get the doctors and nurses that we need. A Department of Health spokesman said: "We know A&E departments are under pressure. There are over one million more people visiting A&E compared to three years ago. On Tuesday, we will set out exactly how we will ensure services are equipped to deal with additional pressures this year and outlining longer-term changes for the future.