A&E Departments: Winter Pressure

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Wollaston]

Certainly, the evidence we heard in our inquiry was that there is grave concern about the level of existing pressure. As the right hon. Gentleman says, if we see a very cold winter, and the flu vaccine does not work as well as it did last winter, we are in serious difficulties. But I stress again that the Committee was very clear that we want to see the four-hour waiting time standard continued, because it is a good measure of whole-system pressure, and if people are facing very long waits that leads to a deterioration in patient safety. So it is a quality issue, as well as an issue about patient experience.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I note what the Chair of the Health Committee says about social care and delayed transfers of care. Would she commend an initiative taken in hospitals in Fife, where the most senior consultants were put into accident and emergency, which led to a 30% reduction in admissions to the hospital? Does she not agree that more junior staff are sometimes perhaps slightly more risk-averse because they do not have the experience? Does she not think that, where Fife has led, other hospitals around the UK could usefully follow?

[Dr Wollaston]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I welcome him to the Health Committee. Yes, he is absolutely right that one of the initiatives that has been put forward is to look at streaming at the front door, but what we heard is that this is quite nuanced. If very senior staff are tied up seeing every single person at the front door, that can be a waste of resources. However, if the patients who are most at risk of needing admission—the sickest individuals —are identified early on and seen by the most senior doctors available, then yes, absolutely, that makes a difference.