NHS emergency waiting time target to be scrapped

Andrew Lansley delivers his first major speech as the new Health Secretary, at a health centre in Bromley by Bow in east London June 8, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - The government is to scrap the maximum four-hour waiting time at hospital accident and emergency units after evidence it had been damaging for patient care, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said on Wednesday.

Lansley said the target, a flagship policy of the former Labour government, had contributed to problems at Staffordshire Hospital, where a report in February found "shocking" standards of emergency care.

Announcing a further inquiry into the hospital, run by the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust, Lansley told parliament the target had led to patients being discharged when they were not ready or being transferred to inappropriate wards.

"We are going to look ... at how we can scrap the four-hour target as it currently exists and work on the basis of what the clinical evidence makes clear directly contributes to delivering the best possible results for patients," Lansley said.

"What happened at Stafford was evidence, and we had other evidence in many other places, that the four-hour target was being pursued not in order to give the best possible care to patients -- but in spite of what would be the best possible care for patients."

In February's report, inquiry chairman Robert Francis said he had found an atmosphere at Stafford "in which front line staff and managers were led to believe that if the targets were not met they would be in danger of losing their jobs."

An earlier health watchdog report in 2009 said it had found appalling standards of emergency care at the hospital and said patients would have died as a consequence of the deficiencies it found.

Lansley said Francis would lead a broad public inquiry into the hospital and into why its failings were allowed to happen.

He said there had been a "national failure of the regulatory and supervisory system who should have secured the quality and safety of patient care."

Lansley wants to change the focus of the National Health Service from meeting short-term targets favoured by Labour to concentrating on the outcome of treatments given to patients.

"The events at Mid-Staffordshire were a tragic story of targets being put before clinical judgement and patient care, focussing on the cost and volume of treatment not the quality," he said.

Andy Burnham, the former Labour health secretary, said severe understaffing was the main reason for the failings at Stafford Hospital, which has since recruited more than 140 extra nurses.

"These were isolated events at an isolated hospital," he said. He questioned how Lansley would prevent waiting times rising if he abolished the accident and emergency target.

"It was brought in because ... people were waiting for hours on end, for whole days, in accident and emergency departments some years ago."

(Editing by Steve Addison)