Basildon Trust misses A&E targets: Patients with emergencies are being let down says Labour candidate.
Polly Billington, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Thurrock is appalled that Basildon and Thurrock Trust isn’t meeting the government’s targets for A&E emergencies to be treated within 4 hours.
Ms Billington said: “When you are in an ambulance on the way to A&E you want to be sure you will be treated in good time. That’s why Labour set targets of 98% for “blue light” emergencies to be treated within four hours.
“Now the target is 95% and these latest statistics show that Basildon and Thurrock Trust isn’t meeting that. More people are facing longer waits while ministers obsess about privatising one of our most precious national assets.
“Jackie Doyle Price voted for this dangerous and wasteful reorganisation. She should accept her decisions are having a damaging affect on Thurrock. She should urge her own Prime Minister David Cameron to drop the Health Bill and start putting patients first.”
Labour’s Shadow Health Minister Jamie Reed said:
“Today for the tenth week running, hospitals have failed to meet the Government’s own lowered A&E target. This is yet more evidence of how patients are paying the price for the Government’s mismanagement of our precious NHS.
“Ministers are obsessing over their reckless NHS reorganisation plans and lost Labour’s firm grip on waiting times. This Government relaxed Labour’s standards on A&E waiting times and now more people are facing longer waits.
“The NHS is showing signs of increasing distress and it’s time the Government focused on what matters to patients, not this costly reorganisation. David Cameron is putting his political pride before the best interests of the NHS. He must drop this Health Bill and start putting patients first.”
Perhaps Polly and her comrades should have thought of this before they flooded the country with immigrants with all the consequences that brings. Perhaps if hospitals didn’t have to spend money on translators they could treat more people.
Nor does Polly mention that despite Labour throwing billions into the NHS it was still poorly run and managed hence the need for reforms not privitsation. Obviously she has forgotten this as has her leader and fellow colleagues and are yet to bring any other options to the table.
Personally I think the NHS does need reforming but it does have to be very carefully done and standards must be improved, especially at Basildon. I would start by bringing cleaners/cooks and the like back in house, banning health tourists unless they pay for treatment before hand and having much smaller translation teams outside of Central London.
This is all about A&E departments having to cope with more and more people. With Basildon being the only A&E in the area and more and more people living in Thurrock and Basildon, it is not a surprise that there is more pressure on the A&E dept. Labour never learned that it’s not about targets, targets care nothing for the quality of care given or for the working conditions of the Dr’s and nurses trying to meet them. Labour did indeed chuck billions at the NHS and can anybody say we have had improvements that have matched that investment?
“David Cameron is putting his political pride before the best interests of the NHS”.
This is a accusation that i never thought i would hear a labour spokesperson ever utter again, as they had the biggest EGO in Tony Blair , only ever seeking political pride and “leaving behind a legacy”Unfortunately he was ilegally followed by Gordon Brown who had an even bigger ego but by this time had little funds to back up his ego.However he decided to spend the money anyway, and worry about where it came from at a later date. As previous posts have stated the labour government threw billions at the NHS to no avail. It MUST be reformed, in a careful manner, and to that fact, we should all seek to remind the government that we want results not statistics
Yet another Labour politician with memory loss, how many more of these poor souls are out there with no memory before 2011……………
The NHS has been in decline for decades, Labour only tried sticking a plaster over a gaping wound and under Labour the amount of management within the NHS grew out of bounds.
Grays64 has made a great point, Basildon is the only NHS hopsital with full A&E facillities to serve all of Thurrock and Basildon, at the same time local government are trying to throw even more houses up where ever they can, Thurrock has grown even bigger over the years and whilst more social housing is being bulit little is being done to the existing infrastructure with Hospitals and Schools, when will any government (national or local) wake up and smell the coffee, we cannot continue like this.
You cannot build houses without the necessary infrastructure. The best thing to do with NHS is to keep all the remaining A&E depts open, do not close any of them and transfer services as this simply moves problems on rather than dealing with them.
Thurrock needs some sort of hospital of its own now as Basildon also caters for people in Castle Point and Parts of Brentwood. You cannot have one main hospital for the whole of South Essex.
The people of Thurrock used to have a perfectly good A&E at Orsett.
Then despite local outrage most of it was sold off for a private housing estate.
And it wasn’t even their land to sell!
jmw118 is right that we used to have a good A&E at Orsett, if I remember rightly, the nursing accomodation was given over to refugees who actually vandalised the places.
Basildon woudl eb a good hospital if it did not have to cater for the amount of people that are now moving into the area with no extra infrastructure, it wont be long now before everyone will cross the river and use Darenth Hospital (much more modern and clean, and not over ran at present)
In the not to distant future a new hospital will be needed in either Grays or Brentwood, especially if Essex continues as a developers dream place to build thousands of homes.