Problems With The Nhs

[fraz65]

This was a challenging day for Emergency Departments throughout the country, however the media continue to misrepresent the 4-hour Emergency Care target as simply a wait to be seen. The 4-hour Emergency Care target states that 95% of patients must be either admitted or discharged within 4 hours but this seems to have escaped the mainstream media. It makes the problem appear to be the responsibility of the Accident and Emergency department when it is exit block due to lack of hospital beds that is the root cause of the issue. In my department today a major incident was declared as we had 25 patients waiting for more than 12 hours for a bed. New presentations were still being seen within the hour however. The big change that has caused problems with A and E exit block has been the reduction in acute hospital beds. In 1988 there were 300,000 beds but by 2013, fewer than 150,000 remained. This is not an Emergency Department crisis, it's a hospital crisis.