Minister told to get a grip as hospital opens tent outside A&E department

Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham said that, across England, major A&E units have failed to meet the four-hour target each week since late September.

He made his comments after reports suggested patients in Norfolk faced the prospect of being treated in a tent after a hospital’s A&E department was full to bursting.

The major incidents tent was erected outside Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on Monday where emergency patients were left in ambulance queues for up to three hours or more.

The East of England Ambulance Service said it allowed them to manage new arrivals, releasing ambulances for emergency calls. No patients were treated in the tent and the issue had been resolved.

“Between 11am and 8pm the trust had an average of between six and 15 vehicles queuing for up to three-plus hours,” said Oskan Edwardson, associate director of special operations at the ambulance service. “Clearly this led to ambulances not being available to respond to other patients in the community.”

“We worked closely with the hospital and Clinical Commissioning Group throughout the afternoon and deployed the trust major incident tent to help release ambulances back onto the road.”

Mr Burnham said new data shows the target of 95 per cent of patients being seen within four hours at major A&E units has been missed, with performance at some trusts dipping below 70 per cent in recent months.

He said that in the past six months, an extra 107,000 patients have had to wait beyond the four-hour target time compared to the same period last year.

“England’s A&E departments are suffering their worst winter for a decade, with thousands more people waiting longer to be seen across the country,” he said. “The NHS has failed to hit the target almost the entire time Jeremy Hunt has been Health Secretary. He urgently needs to get a grip and focus on what matters. The Government must ensure there are enough staff on the ground across the NHS to provide safe care.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “The NHS is seeing an extra one million more patients in A&E compared to two years ago and despite the additional workload it is coping well.”