In the latest quarterly report by an NHS provider, it has been revealed that over 2,600 patients have waited more than a year to receive adequate care and treatment. Furthermore, A&E departments across the country that are considered “best-performing”, are failing to meet the NHS Mandate’s waiting time standards. The Mandate demands that patients who are waiting in an A&E department should wait no longer than four hours.
The under-funding of the NHS and its dreaded winter periods of overcrowding have been a cause for concern amongst the general public. The report by the provider covers the ‘most challenging winter periods that the NHS has had’. By the end of March, 2,647 patients waited over a year for treatment, compared to 1,513 in March 2017. The report also highlights that the NHS did not meet targets for referrals, cancer care and diagnostics tests.
The chief executive of NHS Improvement, Ian Dalton, has said ‘despite epic challenges, the NHS staff up and down the county displayed incredible resilience’. Meanwhile, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Janet Davies, has pledged to Theresa May that the under-funding cannot continue. She states the NHS needs ‘genuinely new money’.
