RECORD numbers of patients are waiting for more than four hours for treatment at ­England’s over-stretched accident and emergency departments, latest figures showed yesterday.

For the first time ever A&Es have failed to meet treatment targets for six months in a row, according to figures from NHS England.

The Department of Health says that 95 per cent of patients must be treated within four hours, but government cuts and closures caused missed targets from September 2014 to March 2015.

The failures meant that 1,397,851 sick or injured people waited more than four hours.

“It’s bad enough that some sick and injured people were having to wait for more than four hours in the depths of winter — a time when demand on the NHS was at its peak,” said Unison head of health Christina McAnea.

“But for that still to be the case now that spring is here shows just how stretched A&E departments have become.

Nonetheless, NHS England’s figures show that, in the week ending March 29, 92 per cent of patients spent four hours or less from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge.

This was down on the previous week when 93.2 per cent were seen within the time limit.

“There’s only one person to blame for the A&E crisis and that’s David Cameron,” said Labour shadow health secretary Andy Burnham.

“If David Cameron gets back in, his extreme spending cuts mean he can’t protect the NHS and the crisis in A&E will get even worse.”

Mr Burnham said that Labour would recruit 200,000 nurses and 8,000 GPs, paid for by a mansion tax on homes valued over £2 million.