General election 2015: England has worst A&E waiting times for a decade, new figures show

 
Breakfast time: The Prime Minister and wife Samantha ate breakfast with staff at the HQ of insurance firm Scottish Widows

Long waits for A&E are at their worst for a decade across the country, official figures revealed today, as Labour hit out at the Coalition’s record on the NHS.

The proportion of patients seen within four hours at A&E departments in England has failed to meet the target of 95 per cent for the 26th week in a row, according to the latest data. NHS England figures showed 92 per cent of patients spent four hours or less from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge in the week ending March 29.

This was down on the previous week, when 93.2 per cent were seen within the time limit. The quarterly figure to March was 91.8 per cent, the worst since 2004.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “After five years of David Cameron, A&E waits are at their worst level for a decade and patients are finding it harder and harder to see a GP.”

But the Conservatives rejected the Labour claims. “A&E units across the UK faced unprecedented demand this winter, but English A&Es see 3,000 more patients a day within four hours than in 2009, and perform better than Scotland, Northern Ireland and Labour-run Wales, so it is completely wrong for Labour to try to turn this into a political football,” a spokesman said.

It came as Labour claimed more than 2,600 patients waited too long for cancer treatment in London last year.

Mr Burnham said these patients, needing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatment, had to wait more than two months after an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer.

They included 213 with breast cancer, 403 with stomach or bowel cancer, 377 with lung cancer, 868 with bladder, kidney or prostate cancer and 142 with skin cancer.

Mr Burnham added that in London 19 per cent of all cancer patients waited too long for treatment, higher than any other part of England.

“In some cases, their chances of survival will have been harmed. Labour is committed to cancer tests and results within one week to help end this scandal,” he said.

But the Conservatives denied a real-terms cut in funding for cancer treatment.

A spokesman said: “We inherited the worst cancer survival rates in Western Europe from Labour — but by focusing on early diagnosis and better access to the latest drugs, we’re on course to save 12,000 more lives a year.”

Labour also claimed 600 fewer GP surgeries are offering extended opening hours, using a poster campaign dubbed “The doctor can’t see you now”. But Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said 7.5 million patients were seen by GPs at evenings and weekends.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in