NHS: Targets

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am sorry that the noble Lord is a sceptic on these matters. In the field of mental health care, for example, where there is a long-standing position of private sector contestability, we have seen that standards have been driven up. There is no doubt that the foundation trust model has also paved the way for higher quality in healthcare.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, turning to waiting lists for accident and emergency services, which we obviously want to provide the highest possible care, I want to ask how the newly proposed scheme will improve the quality of care. For example, how will the abolition of the 19-minute response time to a 999 call that is not life threatening affect the health outcome for an elderly lady who has slipped and broken her wrist on the ice? Such a slip may not be life threatening, but the elderly lady may wait for quite some time for an ambulance and then wait considerably longer than four hours in accident and emergency. Is the waiting time not an outcome here? If the Government do not intend to introduce a new outcomes framework for two years, would the Government not be better to leave the current guarantees in place because we know that they ensure patient safety?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, on ambulance response times, the existing eight-minute target will remain in place for category A calls. For category B calls, which are serious but not immediately life threatening, Peter Bradley, who is the national ambulance director, has been working with Professor Cooke to develop a set of 11 clinical quality indicators for the ambulance service. We are clear that those indicators will provide a much better and more rounded set of objectives than a mere 19-minute response time. Of course response times are important, but there are other things that should be focused on as well. We hope to improve standards in this way as from April next year.