26.04.13
NHS must address A&E ‘system failures’ – Hunt
Pressure on A&E is the biggest challenge facing the NHS, health secretary Jeremy Hunt has stated. Speaking at Age UK’s annual conference, he highlighted the failure to care for people with long-term illnesses as part of the challenge.
He said: “When I have been visiting A&Es in recent weeks, hard-working staff talk about the same issues: lack of beds to admit people, poor out-of-hours GP services, inaccessible primary care and a lack of co-ordination across the health system.
“The decline in out-of-hours care follows the last government's disastrous changes to the GP contract, since when we have seen four million more people using A&E every year. We must address these system failures, and I am determined we will.
“There are simply too many cases where people with long-term conditions do not get the medicines, the checks or the support they need.
“They, or their relatives, end up having to put their energy into fighting the system instead of fighting their illness.”
Labour has labelled A&E units “in crisis”, with the number of people waiting longer than four hours rising to 888,000 last year and 167 people waiting for more than 12 hours to be seen.
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