Data for England from the NHS Information Centre shows the percentage of people spending more than four hours in emergency departments rose from 4 per cent of all attendances (600,000) in 2009/10 to 5.6 per cent (900,000) in 2010/11.
The rise was before the Government scrapped the four-hour A&E target introduced under Labour and replaced it with a new set of quality indicators.
The total number of attendances where people were seen within four hours dropped from 96 per cent in 2009/10 to 94.4 per cent in 2010/11, the data also showed.
The total number seen within two hours fell from 49.4 per cent to 46.3 per cent.
The number of people attending A&E is rising, the data also revealed.
And doctors have previously warned that they find themselves "fire-fighting" growing numbers.
Dr John Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, has said "patchy" out-of-hours GP care for patients is also contributing to a rise in the numbers seeking help from A&E.
The busiest time for A&E arrivals is 10am on Monday mornings.
Today's figures show there were 15.8 million unplanned attendances at A&E in 2010/11, up more than 700,000 on 2009/10 when there were 15.1 million.
Overall, 57.4 per cent (9.3 million) of all attendances resulted in patients being discharged while 21.9 per cent (3.6 million) of all attendances were admitted into hospital.
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