Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to ensure that people attending A&E are seen within an hour of their arriving.

The National Health Service waiting times standard in England is that 95% of patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of their arrival at accident and emergency (A&E) departments. The Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2017/18 sets out that performance in England should meet this standard within 2018.

We already set more challenging targets compared to other countries, including Sweden (whose target is to achieve 80% of patients within four hours), New Zealand (six hours), and Canada (up to eight hours if the patient is being admitted). The Government remains committed to maintaining the four-hour standard as a top priority, and there are no plans to change it.

On average, in 2016/17 patients left A&E just two hours and 49 minutes after arriving.