Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, Caroline Voaden, has called the dropping of the government’s pledge to meet the A&E waiting time target of admitting, transferring or discharging 95% of patients within four hours by the end of the Parliament an “insult to patients”.
It comes as the latest NHS stats reveal that in October 3,131 patients in South Devon waited over four hours in A&E. Just 68.7% of patients were seen within the four hour window over that period, missing the NHS target of 95%.
South Devon’s MP called the figures “shocking” and said that the government’s decision to drop the four hour wait pledge showed a “lack of ambition” to get patients the care they deserve.
Caroline Voaden called on the government to reinstate the pledge and take steps to ‘winterproof’ the NHS to make this the last winter crisis that the health service and patients ever have to experience.
Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, Caroline Voaden said:
Dropping this pledge is a staggeringly short-sighted move by the government and will in no way get the patients the care they deserve.
After fourteen years where our NHS has run into the ground, people are desperate to see Ministers treating this scandal with the seriousness it deserves and fighting tooth and nail to get these dangerously long A&E waits down.
It is an insult to patients here in South Devon for the government to not even try to meet this pledge. An urgent rethink is needed, as are steps to winterproof the NHS to make this winter crisis the last one the health service and patients ever have to experience.
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