Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

2. What estimate he has made of the number of patients who waited more than 12 hours for treatment in A&E in the last 12 months.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours to be admitted to A&E in the last 12 months.

[The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

Between February 2016 and January 2017, there were just under 3,500 waits of longer than 12 hours from decision to admit to admission. That is completely unacceptable, which is why the Government took urgent steps to free up NHS bed capacity in this month’s Budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. To continue, let me say that in this so-called “drastically underfunded NHS”, the hon. Lady’s local hospital—St George’s in Tooting—now has 36 more doctors working in A&E than there were in 2010. However, we also think that as a lot of people go to A&E departments with minor injuries and things that can be dealt with by GPs, we need to have GPs on site, and this Parliament we are planning to have 5,000 more doctors working in general practice.

[Christian Matheson]

In January, more than 1,000 patients at the Countess of Chester’s A&E unit had to wait more than four hours and only 81% of patients had to wait less than four hours. Now that the 95% target has been abandoned, until at least midway through next year, what guarantee can the Secretary of State give my constituents that we will not get a repeat of this next winter?

[Mr Hunt]

On the contrary, we have not abandoned the 95% target—we have reiterated its importance. There is, however, one part of the United Kingdom that has said it wants to move away from the 95% target—Wales. The Welsh Health Minister said last week:

“You can go to A&E and be there five hours but have…a good experience.”

That is not looking after patients; it is giving up on them.