Labour seeks summit to find A&E 'fix'

Labour has called on the government to hold an urgent summit on how to alleviate pressure on A&E services in English hospitals.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said local government, the emergency services and other NHS professionals needed to agree co-ordinated action.

Figures show the NHS has missed its four-hour A&E waiting time target.

A Conservative Party spokesman said Labour was trying to generate headlines rather than propose a solution. 

In a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Mr Burnham said there had been a "failure" to anticipate the situation.

He suggested the problem was linked to a loss of social care capacity provided by councils this winter.

"You will know that I have repeatedly warned throughout this Parliament that severe cuts to social care could end up dragging down the NHS," he said.

"This is exactly what is happening now. Increasing numbers of very frail, elderly people are ending up in A&E and then becoming trapped in hospital because the care they need to be discharged is not available.

"This comes on top of pressures arising from the fact that people are finding it harder to see a GP, and pressures within the NHS from the shortage of nurses and GPs."

Major incidents

 

Mr Hunt earlier admitted that meeting the A&E standard was proving tough, but pointed out that England has some of the toughest targets in the world.

"Targets matter but not at any cost. The priority is to treat people with dignity and respect," he said.

 

 

The figures showed that from October to December 92.6% of patients were seen in four hours - below the 95% target.

 

The performance is the worst quarterly result since the target was introduced at the end of 2004.

The rest of the UK is also missing the target and a number of hospitals have declared "major incidents" recently.

This signifies they are facing exceptional pressures and triggers extra staff being called in and other steps, including cancelling non-emergency care, such as routine operations.
Hospitals in Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, London and Surrey are among those affected.

It is the second time the target - which measures the point from arrival to being discharged, admitted to hospital or transferred elsewhere - has been missed under the coalition.
In the first three months of 2013 94.1% of patients were seen in four hours.
'Patient safety'

  Mr Burnham referred in his letter to reports of "police and fire vehicles standing in for ambulances and ferrying people to hospital", which he said "raises major patient and public safety concerns."
He said a summit was needed to "assess the situation and put in place a coordinated plan to ensure patient safety and support the performance of A&E departments" to minimise any avoidable further major incidents being declared.

Meeting the A&E target has proved particularly tough since the end of the summer.
The target has been missed on a weekly basis - England provides these figures along with the quarterly statistics - every week except one since the end of August.
However, the performance in England is still better than elsewhere in the UK. The data in the other nations lags a bit behind England.

In Wales the data from November shows just 83.8% of patients were seen in time.
Northern Ireland is performing even worse - just over 80% of patients were seen within four hours in November.

Scotland has a slightly tougher waiting time target - 98% of patients should be seen in four hours - but in September 93.5% were.
Comparing the September figures for England and Scotland shows England was performing slightly better in that month.
It means according to latest data all parts of the UK are missing the A&E waiting time target.