Health Minister concedes NHS not meeting targets

By The Press Association6th January 2015News EnglandCare Standards, Health and Wellbeing, News England, NHS

Health Minister Norman Lamb has admitted the NHS “is not meeting” its targets, as new figures today are expected to show that A&E waiting times have fallen to their worst level for a decade.

Many hospitals have struggled under the pressure this winter, with some failing to meet the target of dealing with 95% of patients within four hours.

The latest figures, which cover October to December and will be released later this morning, are expected to be the worst since this target was introduced a decade ago.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Mr Lamb (pictured) said Britain’s ageing population means hospitals are having to treat older patients with chronic conditions.

He said: “We rightly have the toughest targets in the developed world. We are not meeting them.

“We are living longer, the pressures of people living with chronic conditions. We hear lots of reports from A&E departments of older people particularly turning up more ill than they have in the past.”

The Liberal Democrat minister called for all political parties to work together and come up with a plan to secure the long-term funding of the NHS.

He said: “I’m also saying that the NHS is so important, to all of us, that I think it goes beyond party politics. We all understand the pressures.

“Anyone who thinks that Labour coming into power means all these problems will disappear would be in fantasy land.

“So let’s get all the parties together, this year, to have a fundamental review, engage the public in a debate and discussion about how we sustain the NHS. It’s too important to allow this vital service to be undermined.”

His comments come amid growing pressure on hospitals with a number declaring “major incidents” in recent days because of A&E pressures.

A surge in demand at emergency departments has forced several hospital trusts to activate major incident plans.

Gloucester Royal, Cheltenham General Hospital and Scarborough Hospital have implemented the emergency measure.

The Royal Surrey County Hospital and United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust also said they were putting plans in place as they tried to cope with demand.

Managers at Scarborough Hospital said the situation had been brought on by an “unprecedented surge in demand”.

The hospital said the decision was taken after patients had been waiting in its emergency department yesterday, unable to be admitted to the main hospital due a lack of beds.

The move means some non-emergency operations have been postponed.

The president of the College of Emergency Medicine said the pressure on staff was “intolerable”, with around 20,000 more patients a week attending A&E than a year ago.

Dr Clifford Mann said: “We have reached a tipping point – 20,000 extra patients a week all have to be accommodated within the same bed stock and the same capacity as the system in 2013.”

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “The thing that concerns me is this daily, weekly intolerable pressure is starting to have an effect on staff. They are more likely to become sick, they are more likely to be unable to work and they burn out and choose to go into other professions.

“That means this is not a sustainable situation.”

He highlighted a shortfall in recruitment for A&E roles: “There is a 50% vacancy rate for the last three years of training. We recruit well into year one because emergency medicine is a very professionally rewarding career, but by the time they get to year three 50% choose either to choose a different specialty or to emigrate.

“So there are now 500 UK-trained emergency doctors working in Australia which cost the British taxpayer a quarter of a billion pounds to train.”

Dr Mann said one of the reasons for the increase in patients was because the NHS 111 phone service was directing more people to A&E.

“The coverage of NHS 111 has gone from about six million to almost the full population and, if you look at the figures, there has been an increase in the number of patients they recommend should attend A&E or they send an ambulance to.

“So you shouldn’t blame the patients when they have been following the signs and the direction they have been given.”

Chris Ham, chief executive at healthcare think-tank the King’s Fund, said it was concerning that emergency departments were already struggling to cope this winter.

“We’ve not yet experienced a major outbreak of flu and we know that is likely to happen at some point – maybe not this winter but maybe next,” he told the BBC.

“If that were to occur, adding to the existing pressures on A&E, then waiting times would be under even more pressure than they are today and, equally important, hospital beds would be occupied.”

Professor Ham said when hospitals announce major incident plans, the problem rarely lies with A&E departments alone.

“It’s about beds being full because of the lack of alternatives in the community,” he said.

“The issue here is the need for the whole system to work more effectively – for GPs, community services, pharmacies and social care too to support hospitals to do a very difficult job at a very difficult time of the year…

“There has been good planning, there has been more resource – but our view is that this is trying to patch up a system that is pretty fundamentally broken.”

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust said the health community in Staffordshire had also escalated to major incident level, leading to the postponement of some operations.

In a statement, the trust said hospitals, community providers, NHS commissioners and West Midlands Ambulance Service were working together to manage “unprecedented” demand for healthcare services.

Ann Marie Morris, clinical director for emergency medicine at Royal Stoke University Hospital, said: “Clinicians have not taken this decision lightly.

“We would ask for people to be patient as NHS staff work hard to ensure that NHS services are maintained as much as possible.”