The government is to take the controversial and potentially unpopular step of scrapping four-hour waiting time targets in accident and emergency departments and instead focus on delivering the “best possible results for patients”, it said yesterday.
The coalition government had already announced widespread cuts to NHS targets that have “no clinical justification” without stipulating where the axe was likely to fall. But yesterday the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, revealed the plan as he took questions in the House of Commons following his announcement of a full public inquiry into failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
“We are going to look, and we will look constructively, at how we can scrap the four-hour target as it currently exists and work on the basis of what the clinical evidence makes clear directly contributes to delivering the best possible results for patients,” said Lansley.
Read more at The Guardian.
