News

Tony Lloyd: “Shocking A&E waiting time is still growing”

Figures from the NHS reveal that 12,029 people had to wait more than four hours for emergency care at A&Es in Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.
 
Tony said, “People are having to wait far too long to be seen in A&E, and have been left for hours often in serious pain.
 
“Their experiences are bound to put people off going to A&E who need medical attention. Unacceptable waits will mean people in Rochdale could fall through the cracks.
 
“The Government’s response to the crisis in A&E is to scrap the zero tolerance for 12 hour waits. At the same time as they are putting up taxes on working people, they are lowering standards for patients. We’re paying more but waiting longer.”
 
Shockingly, 833 people locally had to wait more than 12 hours to be admitted to accident and emergency. Just 61% of patients admitted to A&E in the are were seen within 4 hours – the NHS says that 95% of patients should be admitted, transferred, or discharged in that time.
 
Accident and emergency departments across the country are facing huge pressures. As the Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, admitted, a decade of Conservative mismanagement left the health service “wanting and inadequate” when the pandemic struck.
 
There are now also 6.73 million people on the NHS waiting list in England as of June 2022. This is the highest ever recorded. At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, following a decade of Tory mismanagement there were 4.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in England, then a record high. Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016. Now, 1 in every 9 people in England are on the NHS waiting list.
 
The NHS went into the latest wave of Covid infections with the longest waiting list ever, understaffed and overstretched.

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