Waiting time targets at A&E to be scrapped!

Targets punish the busiest hospitals. I imagine a&e workers will welcome this

Time targets are totally inappropriate in an emergency clinical area where only clinical criteria should be used to assess and treat. I'm glad they are going they have hamstrung the clinical staff for decades now causing the problem we have.

When I woke up with a very inflamed eyelid I was in A&E before 8am. Transferred to eye clinic at 8am. Assessed, vision normal, antibiotics definitely needed, IV. Told I needed to be seen by ENT as I’d had surgery 8 days previously. At 12 noon I was transferred to ENT ward to be seen by one of the ENT clinic doctors. My daughters arrived with coffee and sandwiches as no food offered and I’m T2 diabetic.
Eventually seen at 5pm and admitted for what turned out to be a 4 night stay. First antibiotics given at 4 am the following day.
I was only moved to ward because of the 4 hour waiting time. Had I stayed in A&E I would have been admitted sooner and treatment started sooner too. A catch-all system doesn’t always work.

I would much rather be in A&E for 5, 6 or 10 hours if that meant my treatment was carefully thought through, organised and given.

Xrays, lab tests, etc do not appear out of thin air - they take time to process and to be read. Obviously all hospital departments need to be as time-efficient as possible, but if a cardiac arrest comes in while they are treating my broken arm - I expect to wait for as long as it takes.

The only solution is more staff in all departments.

I agree with you Wildswan. Maybe if the "stubbed toe" people have a long wait the "real" emergencies will be sorted more swiftly.
No need to punish the A&E staff for having too few GPs

I think that scrapping the target times in A&E is a good thing.
How on earth it was thought that it could always be followed, I don't know.
Emergencies crop up, and need to be dealt with quickly, and I think the same as Wildswan16.

Surely if an A & E consistently fails to meet the 4 hour deadline, resources need to be increased rather than "punishing" it for failing to meet the threshold.

If the target is scrapped, there will be no way of knowing that A & Es are overstretched.

I agree with grow we need to have information about waiting times - that’s not the same as having a target but neither is it an irrelevance as to how long people have to wait. As has been said by many before here and elsewhere, some changes to the GP system would help to avoid unnecessary attendances.

The 4 hour wait was a joke anyway . When I took my critically ill DH to A&E at the beginning of October we waited over 7 hours before he saw anyone .

It is not the lack of doctors and nurses causing the holdups but the lack of beds on wards to transfer to .

and those lack of beds on wards is often caused by not having suitable safe places to discharge elderly/chronically il/ disabled patients to.
nursing homes, care system, costs, availability....
the whole thing is crock.

gilly wasn’t he even triaged?

Yes * welbeck* there’s a whole system failure and the danger is that by abolishing the target, we’ll hear nothing more about long waits but the problem will remain and probably get worse.

If the target is scrapped, there will be no way of knowing that A & Es are overstretched.

There are plenty of better ways to audit efficience such as readmission rate, theraputic outcome, mortality, satisfaction surveys

No suziewoozie he was not triaged. It was a Friday night and they had their hands full seeing to their regulars (drunks and druggies).

He could barely stand or sit. He was being violently sick and crying . A 6ft 2” man ! Ignored and desperately ill. 7 and a half hours later he passed out and was “seen” . What followed was anyone’s worst nightmare .

Exactly Welbeck people in beds who do not need to be in hospital but cannot go home without some care in place. It’s a complete shambles.

God gilly not triaged in all that time. I just didn’t think thst could happen. I’m beyond words.

I remember standing outside at about 3 am (it was a bitterly cold night) and a male nurse coming out after me telling me to take my DH to another hospital . You really couldn’t make it up .

How do readmission rates audit A & E?

Readmission rates a reflection of possibly being discharged too early and poor follow-up care in a community setting, not A & E.

No, A&E staff, nurses doctors do NOT welcome this.

Instead of a target, are hospitals now going to report on average waiting times, including in an ambulance - or what?

If it means that patients do not have to wait outside A&E in ambulances for 9 or so hours as some have done recently in Wales then perhaps the targets should be scrapped.
At least then patients would not have to wait until the next day for an ambulance.

BTW the NHS in Wales is devolved to the Labour government.

Teetime your post is very interesting.

I think targets are wrong as are league tables.

Call where would the people from the ambulances go? I thought they were waiting for a space in A and E?