GONE TARGET Hunt tells A&E medics: Ignore goal to treat people in 4 hours
JEREMY Hunt has scrapped crucial NHS waiting time targets.
The Health and Social Care Secretary made the announcement in the 2018/19 NHS Mandate, a list of priorities for trusts issued every year.
It means overcrowded A& Es will no longer have to aim to treat 95% of A&E patients within four hours.
It also applies to the target to treat 92% of people waiting for non- urgent ops within 18 weeks.
Labour Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth attacked the decision, saying: “This shows again the devastating impact that Tory underfunding is having for patients.” Hospitals have not met the four-hour A&E target since July 2015. And the number on waiting lists for treatment for ops, including hip or knee replacement, has crept up to more than four million. Analysis by Labour, verified by the House of Commons Library, shows last year almost 1.5 million extra patients waited more than four hours in crisis-hit A&Es – up massively on 2012.
The NHS Mandate, published earlier this week, confirms that the four hour A&E and 18 week surgery wait target have both been dumped by the Tories.
Mr Ashworth branded it a “staggering collapse in standards under this Government” and said it meant more people would suffer in pain for longer.
He warned abandoning the targets for another year also threatened the future of free health care.
“The Tories have to give the NHS the money it needs to deliver the basic standards to which patients are meant to be legally entitled,” he insisted.
Mr Hunt reportedly said he made the decision because of the number of hospitals struggling to meet the core performance targets.