Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I am proud of the NHS and of the staff who work for it daily in my constituency; they are part of a huge team that saves lives every day.

The issue of A and E waiting times has shot up the political agenda, but I am concerned that many of the staff working in those departments will fear that their deeply held commitment to the job will not be getting the recognition it deserves. Across the country, 22 million people have visited A and E, with 96% being seen within four hours—that is nearly 1 million more people than a year ago, which is positive news.

I have great respect for the shadow Secretary of State, but I do not think the A and E crisis is as acute as the Opposition like to suggest. The reality is that in some areas A and E is going incredibly well. Let me talk about my constituency and the Lister hospital, where our team sees about 135,000 patients a year, about 25% of whom are children, with 21% of the patients seen by our A and E department being admitted to hospital.

I shall read a couple of quick reviews from the past few months. One said:

“I Twice needed help in last 2 months, in each case response on phone was excellent and doc phones back within 20 min. Ambulance was there quickly and I was in A&E within the hour. Excellent treatment there and can’t recommend the service highly enough. Could not have done better anywhere. Everyone involved needs to have a big thank you and how lucky we are to have such a great service. I am 83 and still going strong because of this great care. Again thank you all very much.”

Another said:

“I was recently admitted to Lister via A&E and can only praise every member of staff who dealt with me from that point until I left.”

A third said:

“My son quickly became very ill with strep A and toxic shock syndrome and from the immediate ambulance response to being put in the Short Stay Unit after A&E, he received the most wonderful care and compassion. All of the staff were lovely and we can’t thank them enough.”

So A and E across the country is not as bad as people like to make out. I visited the A and E in Stevenage, spending two and a half hours sitting in the waiting room and then being dealt with very courteously and professionally. It was a very positive experience. I have also been out with the ambulance service in Stevenage and gone around the constituency. I dealt with a number of 999 calls, one of which involved a nine-year-old boy being rushed to A and E. He was dealt with incredibly efficiently by the teams there, who were waiting for him upon his arrival and helped to save his life. They had to put him into an induced coma because of the severity of the condition he was admitted with.

I know that there are issues to address in some parts of the country, but in Stevenage we are benefiting from a £150 million redevelopment of our hospital, which will make it one of the most modern and advanced facilities in the UK. As part of that, a new £20 million A and E unit is being built at the moment. It will be fully open in autumn 2014. I visited the building about a month ago and I can tell hon. Members that it is almost twice the size of the current one. It will have a range of fantastic facilities and services; we have doubled the equipment and doubled the number of people. The staff have been involved every step of the way in designing the new facility with the builders, even pushing the carts around the building to understand the best way in which they can achieve what they want. It will also have a dedicated adult section and a dedicated child section. The Lister hospital and its A and E are doing a great job in my constituency for people every day. A legion of doctors, nurses and clinical staff are doing this fantastic job, and I am proud of them and I am proud of the A and E in my constituency.