NHS: Accident and Emergency Departments

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, of course I entirely agree with my noble friend. As I have said, there will be robust evaluation, monitoring and assessment before any targets are put in place.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, there is no doubt that emergency departments are currently working at full tilt to care for their patients. I recently visited one that had totally reconfigured its workspace. By so doing, it had been able to operate much more efficiently, saving precious time. I believe that it had received grant funding to do this. How many emergency departments have done the same, with or without a grant?

[Baroness Manzoor]

My Lords, forgive me, I do not know the answer in relation to grants and will have to write to the noble Baroness, but she is right that NHS A&E admissions have been quite significant. Demand has increased. To put this into context, the NHS addressed just under 2,500 more attendances per day on average within the four-hour standard in 2017-18 compared with 2009-10, and 86.4% of patients admitted were transferred or discharged within four hours. Performance has improved since last year but we recognise that we have not hit the standard.