Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt ‘won’t budge’ on NHS goals despite 18-week waiting lists for routine operations and failure to meet targets
Winter will be 'substantially more difficult' for NHS
JEREMY Hunt insists he is “not going to budge” on NHS performance goals even though they are often missed.
A&Es routinely fail to deal with 95 per cent of patients in four hours and hospital waiting lists for routine surgery often exceed 18 weeks.
Speaking at The King’s Fund Annual Meeting, in Central London, Mr Hunt said: “Although there are huge pressures and we are not hitting a number of very important access targets for A&E or the 18 week wait for elective care.
"We are not going to budge on the importance of maintaining those standards across the NHS.”
Earlier this month, a powerful group of MPs warned that poor performance in A&E has “become the norm” for some NHS trusts.
A report from the Commons Health Committee warned the NHS could face a “substantially more difficult” winter this year than last.
It said there is growing demand for services, too few staff and a widespread inability to move out patients who are medically fit to be discharged.
In July NHS officials in England announced that hospital trusts will no longer be fined for missing key targets on waiting times and cancer as part of a bid to improve finances.