Wrexham Maelor Hospital Queue & Waiting Times
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2023: We are testing a new system and have invested in some monitoring software.
Below is a live hourly update relaying on data from aeinfo.nhs.wales
The data explains “The Typical time in department times are indicative based on previous attendance data. The information does not include patients arriving by ambulance, or patients with a serious condition that is likely to result in a hospital admission” and “The Currently in Department is a ‘live’ view of the current number of patients in the department”.
UPDATE: Twitter turned off the API unless you pay several thousand a month. This stoppped the bot again. The NHS app also seems to have stopped publishing data.
UPDATE January 2023: The bot is back active! After the local data ceased to be useful in October 2020 we paused the bot, however we were monitoring the app output over the festive period and it appeared to be legitimate data once again. You can get the official NHS waiting time app direct here: http://www.waittimes.uhnm.nhs.uk/ .
After some logging privately we queried the health board on the 4th Jan about the status of the app – and thus the data – and were told, “The app was set up with North Midlands University Hospitals NHS Trust to give an accurate snapshot in real time of those patients within our acute EDs, and waiting times, based on information from our latest patient management software system. We are in the process of linking feeds into the app from our minor injury units (MIUs), which have had the same patient management software system installed.”
Therefore the bot is back active, and will update the data as would be displayed in the app every fifteen minutes. The information we are piping to twitter is as good as the source, and of course it goes without saying do not contact us or twitter if you have an emergency!
The NHS app notes of the output,
“The main function of the app is the provision of the latest known waiting time estimations to help you in making an informed choice on an appropriate NHS Site to visit.
This application provides the latest known waiting time estimations which are obtained directly from the NHS sites displayed. The wait time is only an indicative time we would expect to wait at each organisation and this time is subject to change at any time. Due to the varying urgencies and unpredictable volume of patients attending A&E and Urgent Care centres these times cannot be guaranteed. Wait time refresh frequencies differ between sites and therefore the last refresh time should be noted and considered when selecting a site.
All information contained within this application is for information only. No guarantees are made that the information contained within this application or linked web-sites is accurate, complete and current at any given time. Information presented on this application or associated sites are subject to change at any time.
This application is not intended in any way to replace the advice of your doctor or any other health care professional. Specific advice should be sought in specific situations from a properly qualified health worker.”
The bot can be found @WrexMaelorBot with the latest output below:
Original content below from 2017…
The NHS has launched a new app showing the longest wait and queue length at Wrexham Maelor (believed to be the A&E data) so naturally we sorted out a proxy, sniffed the data and looked at what was being sent where and had a fiddle.
Thankfully the system is cleanly designed and operates via an undocumented API providing JSON output.
We have simply hooked a script to scrape that information and pop it on our @WrexMaelorBot account every 30 minutes.
As this is unsupported and undocumented we expect it will at some point break, so apologies for that in advance.
The information we are piping to twitter is as good as the source, and of course it goes without saying do not contact us or twitter if you have an emergency.
We are logging various stats so hope to improve the output once we have more data. We have opted not to use the term ‘Wrexham’ in the auto tweets to prevent spam in searches.
The bot can be found @WrexMaelorBot with the latest output below:
