Nearly 19,000 NHS patients waiting for more than three days in A&E
Both Labour and the Conservatives have pledged to meet NHS targets in their manifestos. Commenting on the new figures, which were obtained as part of an investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme which airs on Monday, Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “Spending days in an emergency department is … worse than spending days in an airport lounge. They’ll be next to people who can infect them with other diseases… It’s just not acceptable.” Dispatches went undercover in the emergency department at Shrewsbury and Telford ospital NHS trust, and recorded footage that filmmakers said “exposes the suffering and indignity faced by patients on a daily basis”. Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King’s Fund, the independent health think tank, said: “However bad you think it is, how bad the stats are – it’s worse. I think the standard of A&E care in England is in about as deep a hole as I’ve seen in the last 20 years.” One scene in the documentary shows the senior nurse reading out a list of serious complaints at the morning handover meeting, telling staff that “basic nursing care standards have fallen significantly”.
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