08.04.15
Long-term solutions needed to tackle worsening A&E waiting time performance
The NHS in England has missed its four-hour A&E waiting time target for 26 consecutive weeks, with performance at its lowest point in a decade, official figures have confirmed.
NHS England figures showed 92% of patients spent four hours or less from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge in the week ending March 29 – missing the 95% target.
The quarterly figure – between January and March – also revealed that just 91.8% of patients were seen in the four hour window, the worst performance since 2004.
Dr Peter Carter, chief executive & general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “These figures demonstrate what nurses have been telling us for some time – the so-called winter pressures are now lasting all year round.
“The ongoing strain on A&E departments is a symptom of problems elsewhere in the health service and it cannot be solved in isolation.”
He added that without sensible, long-term solutions, the A&E crisis will continue, and patients will continue to suffer.
Unison’s head of health, Christina McAnea, said: “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. But for that still to be the case now that spring is here shows just how stretched A&E departments have become.
“Sadly this is where we are after five years of Tory mismanagement of the health service. The NHS, its patients and its staff need and deserve better.”
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