Stockport MPs call Government dropping A&E wait time pledge an “insult to patients”

Liberal Democrat MPs Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) and Tom Morrison (Cheadle) have 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”.

For Stockport, the statistics reveal that a shocking 38% of patients were not seen within the four hour window – one of the worst performances in the country – highlighting the desperate need for improvements in patient care in the area.

The MPs are currently waiting for a response from Health Minister Karin Smyth after they requested details of whether any of the budget spending on the NHS would be committed to the £130 million repair bill for Stepping Hill, and called for the Department of Health to concentrate on delivering much needed repairs to ensure that the NHS could hit the targets instead of scrapping them. 

Lisa Smart MP said: “We have been in discussions with the Department of Health for months, and they have gone backwards and forwards on spending commitments to Stepping Hill. 

“It is over a month ago that we wrote to the Health Minister Karin Smyth just asking some detail on the NHS funding in the budget, and we have had no response. It concerns me that instead of being able to tell us what funds are available for repairs – and let’s not forget that we keep seeing pictures of flooding and collapsing buildings – they are instead abandoning targets.”

Tom Morrison MP added: “Scrapping these targets is admitting defeat. We have had years of the previous Conservative government running our NHS into the ground. We want change, we want competence, and we want people getting to grip with the problems, not closing their eyes to them.

“Ministers must urgently rethink this approach, reinstate the pledge and take steps to winterproof the NHS to make this the last winter crisis the health service and patients ever have to experience.”