In addition to providing hospital management with a means of determining the necessary capacity in the ED and the IU in order to meet priority specific wait time targets for timely access to the ED, this paper also provides the following insights.
To meet waiting time targets for patients on trolleys in corridors in A&E departments, hospitals have officially reclassified trolleys as beds, and reclassified corridors as hospital wards.
Western Sussex, inspected over four days last December, was among only a handful of trusts to meet waiting time targets for emergency treatment, inspectors said.
The Liberal Democrat leadership candidate fears plans for new waiting time targets for people with conditions such as anxiety and depression to access treatment will be scrapped unless ministers plough £3.5bn into mental health over the next five years.
Nick Clegg will seek to end the second class treatment of mental illness in the NHS by announcing the coalition will set new waiting time targets for those afflicted by common mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Earlier this week, Christopher Smallwood, chairman of St George's University Hospitals NHS foundation trust, which serves 1.3 million people in south-west London, warned that years of underfunding have left hospitals short of staff and unable to meet waiting time targets for cancer and A&E care.
