NHS ‘given up’ on meeting its targets to treat A&E patients

THE NHS has given up on meeting its Accident and Emergency targets for another year, new guidance shows.

The key target – to treat patients within four hours – has not been met since July 2015.

Last year Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said the target was “critical for patient safety” and said the health service should be back meeting it by this year after a cash injection for social care. But annual guidance for the NHS suggests the target will not be hit in 2018-19.

The documents, from NHS England and NHS Improvement, set out expectations for trusts to achieve 90 per cent performance in September 2018, with the “majority” of providers to achieve a 95 per cent target by March 2019.

The guidance follows public wrangles between Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, and ministers over the funding for the health service.

Mr Stevens had wanted £4 billion and said that without it waiting lists could swell to a record five million. Instead he was given £2.8billion.

A&E departments continue to grapple with a winter crisis amid reports that patients are being left in hospital corridors for hours because of bed shortages.

Meanwhile, a number of doctors last week claimed they had been pressurised into manipulating patient records to ensure hospitals did not miss targets.

According to The Independent website, a doctor claimed a senior member of staff asked them to make an alteration to a patient’s records to “find a reason to change the admittance time”. The request was refused. ♦amb♦lance delays are feared to have caused up to 81 patient deaths at a trust “in crisis”, a former health minister said. Norman Lamb said he had seen a list of 40 cases of potential patient harm linked to response time delays at the East of England Ambulance Service Trust and feared there were 120 more incidents of potential patient harm, with a possible death toll exceeding 80.