A&E doctors claim crisis cash ‘squandered’

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said money whad been “squandered” on schemes which have “self-evidently failed”.

It calls for cash to be directly paid to hospitals for investment in A&E units.

Its findings have drawn an angry response from NHS England which accuses the college’s report of “blatant inaccuracies”.

The college said two-thirds of A&E units in the UK had responded to a survey which found most areas had failed to adopt key recommendations for improvements.

The report surveyed 100 A&E department heads in England, with responses indicating only one per cent of £700m allocated by Ministers had been spent on staff or other resources in their units amid claims significant numbers of NHS trusts had used the cash to support prop up worsening finances.

It said the failure to implement key changes and invest in frontline care had led to “extraordinary winter pressures which were largely avoidable”.

College president Cliff Mann said a “derisory proportion” of funding had been handed to emergency departments and it was no coincidence the NHS had suffered four of its most challenging months ever leading to “unacceptable levels of system performance with directly harmful effects on patients and frontline staff”.

He said: “It is so disappointing that our survey shows that the significant investment the government made to tackle the winter pressures has not reached the A&Es it was supposed to help.

“This report is an indictment of current decision making and investment in acute and emergency care.

“Patients and frontline staff deserve better and will be incredulous at the failure to adopt best practice and squander money on admission avoidance schemes that have self-evidently failed.

“This report should act as a catalyst to ensure the same mistakes are not made in 2015.

“In future it would make much more sense to release funding directly to hospitals for investment in A&Es.”

Last night NHS England attacked the findings, accusing the royal college of criticising the work staff in other parts of the NHS to cope with winter pressures.

A spokeswoman said: “This report is a mix of sensible suggestions and blatant inaccuracies.

“In fact, hospitals report they’re spending over £400m on extra services this winter in A&E and for their emergency patients.

“And most hospitals say they have brought in co-located GP services as the report suggests.

“What’s more, most people recognise that as well as spending in A&E departments, patients also need well-funded primary, community and social care to help them stay out of hospital in the first place.

“The bottom line is that we do need properly resourced A&E departments, but that case is not advanced by misleadingly criticising the hard work of the rest of the NHS to cope with what has been a busy and high pressure winter period.”

Officials said latest figures indicated around 60 per cent of funding for winter pressures had been spent in hospitals.