Pressure on NHS the worst ever, says Hunt

THE NHS suffered the worst pressure in its 70-year history this winter, said Jeremy Hunt, as new statistics showed record A&E delays.

More than 1,000 patients faced trolley waits of more than 12 hours in January, after doctors had decided they should be admitted to a ward. The figure is the highest on record, and more than twice that of December.

Overall, just 77.1 per cent of patients at major A&E units were treated within four hours – well short of a target of 95 per cent.

The record low came despite cancellation of up to 55,000 operations, in an effort to relieve immediate pressures during the worst flu season for seven years.

A quarter of all the patients forced to endure trolley waits of more than 12 hours were at Royal Stoke University Hospital, where a senior doctor last month apologised for “Third World” conditions.

The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust had 272 patients waiting at least 12 hours after the decision to admit them to a bed in January. There were also 107 such cases at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and 77 at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, the figures show.

Mr Hunt, the Health Secretary, said pressures were “probably the worst ever”, but he said the NHS was coping well under “very, very tough” factors such as high levels of flu and cold weather.

In an interview with ITV News, he said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that, going forward, the NHS is going to need more money.” But he added that long-term planning is needed to ensure resources are used wisely.

He also suggested Britain should consider increasing investment in line with other European countries. “Both France and Germany have better cancer survival rates than we have and I don’t think it would be acceptable to the British people to have lower standards of healthcare than those two countries,” he said.