Mr Smith was sent to the local A&E department

BBC News Online talks to one patient who was seen within the four-hour target, but who says he then waited for around six hours in A&E before a doctor told him he needed to have his appendix removed.

"I started to feel really sick the day after Boxing Day,

I had the feeling that, if someone had looked at me before, I probably would have been operated on that evening Neil Smith

"I went to the walk-in centre, which was just around the corner. They sent me up to A&E and gave me a letter saying I had abdominal pains which they thought was appendicitis."

He went to the A&E department at St Peter's Hospital in Chertsey.

"I arrived at casualty at about 6pm. I saw the triage nurse and gave her the letter

"I was then placed on a trolley bed in casualty. Then I was virtually ignored for four hours.

"Somebody popped their head in once and said I would be seen as soon as possible.

"I was left there in a fair amount of pain. And I wasn't given any medication.

'Gangrenous'

"After four hours I was taken to a bed in an observation ward in A&E.

"I was probably there for an hour before the doctor came to see me.

"Straight away, she called two consultants down from the ward. They had a look at me and said that I needed an operation as soon as possible.

"But by then it was 11pm. and they said there weren't the staff around to operate on me."

He added: "I had the feeling that, if someone had looked at me before, I probably would have been operated on that evening.

"When they operated on me the next day, they found my appendix was gangrenous."

Mr Smith said he had not complained to the hospital about his experiences.

A spokesman for the hospital said: "As part of the recent star rating evaluation Ashford and St. Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust were awarded two stars and achieved nine out of nine key target areas - one of which is a consistent 95% total time in A&E of 4 hours or less.