Accident and Emergency Departments

(asked on 14th October 2014) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps he has taken to reduce hospital accident and emergency waiting times.


Answered by
 Portrait
Jane Ellison
This question was answered on 21st October 2014

Accident and emergency departments are measured against a standard that at least 95% of patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival.

In the face of rising demand, this standard was met in the first quarter (April to June) of 2014-15, with performance at 95.1%, but narrowly missed in the second quarter (July to September) with performance at 94.98%

An additional £400 million funding has been made available to ensure local urgent and emergency care services are sustainable and ready for the pressures of winter. A range of other steps will relieve demand on accident and emergency departments by improving access to services outside of hospitals and improving the flow of patients through and out of hospitals. These include extending opening hours for general practice, a £3.8 billion Better Care fund for the National Health Service and local authorities to invest in joined up health and social services from April 2015, the NHS 111 service signposting people to primary and community settings where appropriate, the ambulance service resolving more calls without taking people to accident and emergency departments, and increasing accident and emergency workforce capacity. In the longer term, a review of urgent and emergency care services is looking at the way the NHS responds to and receives emergency patients to hospital, to ensure a sustainable system for the future.

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