>
>There are two specific mentions in the National Plan for the NHS in
>England
>
>" 12.10 By 2004 no-one should be waiting more than four hours in
>accident and
> emergency from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge. Average
>waiting times in
> accident and emergency will fall as a result to 75 minutes. By then we
>will have ended
> inappropriate trolley waits for assessment and admission. Of course
>some patients
> such as those emergencies arriving by ambulance will clinically need to
>be assessed
> on a trolley, but after that if they need a hospital bed they should be
>admitted to one
> without undue delay."
>
>What changes to A&E Departments does the list think will be required to
>meet this target?
>
>
>
>--
>Andrew
>_______________________________________________________
Andrew,
This is merely propaganda.
No-one in their right (trained) mind would ever consider taking all A&E
departments as a group and expecting identical results. No-one would pay any
attention to a statement which brings on the "4 hour" limit for absoloutley
no demonstrated reason. It's not even a "round number".
When a department has a 3 hour and 59 minute wait, where does the next
patient go?
But... it does SOUND good to the untrained mind and will likely be quoted by
this government in the future as the great "target" they have set for us and
we failed to deliver. If your point was to get us to publicly reply to this,
I would still hesitate, because it really does not credit any response, in
my opinion. Wait for them to forget it and come up with the next scheme,
like 24-hour GPs, NHS-Direct, self-flushing toilets, universal peace...
drydok
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