Small rise in failure to meet A&E waiting time target
- Published: 16 May 2008 18:37
- Author: Steve Ford
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- Last Updated: 16 May 2008 18:37
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There has been a slight drop in performance against the government's four-hour A&E target, latest figures show.
Across all A&E types provided by the NHS, 97.9% of patients spent four hours or less from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge, according to Department of Health figures for the 12 months ending in March. The figure for last year was 98.2%. For major A&E departments only the percentages were 97% and 97.5%, respectively.
An RCN survey, revealed at this year's congress, suggested 90% of A&E nurses had felt unduly pressurised at some point to meet the target, and 78% that care had been rushed or compromised on occasion in order to meet it.
There were 18.9 million attendances at NHS A&E departments during the last financial year.
