Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel is meeting the four-hour A&E waiting times target.
We are advised that the accident and emergency department at the Royal London Hospital site experienced a 6.6% increase in attendances during August-December 2014 compared to the same period in 2013.
A total of £12.6 million was allocated to the local health system to support the trust, as part of a record overall package of £700 million in Government support.
A number of initiatives have been put in place, including at the Royal London site, to recover performance, including:
- early opening of escalation beds;
- processes for increasing weekend discharges;
- admission avoidance schemes;
- increased clinical support; and
- improved processes to enable medically fit patients to leave the hospital.