UK hospitals drastically missing targets

A BBC investigation has revealed that hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have not hit key targets for cancer, A&E and planned operations for 18 months.

The BBC, which has launched an online NHS Tracker project to allow people to see how their local service is performing on the three waiting time targets, found that only Scotland had met a target, reaching its A&E target three times.

Analysing national performances across the 135 hospital trusts in England, as well as the 26 health boards across the rest of the UK, the BBC reveals that only Luton and Dunstable NHS Trust managed to hit all three targets each time over the past 12 months.

A combination of overcrowding in A&E, an increasing shortage of staff and declining finances have led to missed targets, with poorer performances tending to lead to poorer patient care. One in nine patients are not being seen in four hours in A&E, a number which has doubled in the last four years.

Additionally, the proportion of people waiting over 62 days for cancer treatment has risen by a third in the past four years, with nearly one in five patients now waiting longer. Furthermore, 12 per cent of patients wait longer than they should for a planned operation or treatment.

The deterioration is evident in the findings, with English trusts, having hit its key hospital targets 86 per cent of the time in 2012-13, missing every monthly target in the last year. Wales has not hit any of its monthly key hospital targets throughout that whole five year period.