Kinda agree with the headline.
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| Quote: The Department of Health said Mr Hunt "would not be doing his job" if he did not keep in touch with frontline staff at hospitals. This has previously included phoning chief executives. | |
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And what exactly is he gonna do? Tell them to build new wards with more beds to speed things up? Instantly recruit more staff to increase throughput of patients?
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| Quote: Labour responded by defending the use of targets, which were brought in while it was in power. | |
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The four hour target in some ways helped things and in some ways made things worse. It meant that patients were often inappropriately admitted, rather than being discharged home. It stopped patients waiting ages to be seen, and meant they languished waiting to be seen by the appropriate specialty. In some cases, they would be waiting in a corridor. It also meant that sometimes, the person who'd just come in with chest pains had to wait because someone with a sprained ankle was 5 mins away from breaching.
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| Quote: Mr Prior said that when patients arrived in A&E "the clock starts ticking and not a lot happens". "At three hours people start to get interested - and at three hours 55 minutes the chief executive is down in the A&E department. That doesn't make any sense," he said. | |
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I have never seen anyone "higher" than a consultant in A&E when the sh!t hits the fan.