Fewer people visiting A & E at York hospital

Waiting times still stubbornly high

The latest NHS figures for January reveal that there were just over 17,000 presentations at the York Hospital Accident and Emergency unit.

Although there is usually a peak in winter, this number is down on the 19,683 who presented during August last year. ,

One in four (24.8%) patents attending had to wait for over 4 hours to have their needs addressed. That is more than the national average of 18.3%.

We believe that the Councils Health Scrutiny Board should consider performance reports like these – covering the public services most likely to be used by residents – at their monthly meetings.

14th January meeting to receive a report on problems at York A&E

Following our story this morning prospective York MP Nick Love wrote to the new (Conservative) Chair of the Council’s Health Scrutiny Board suggesting that an urgent item be added to the agenda.

He wanted the meeting to hear first hand about the problems, the causes and the potential remedies.

Credit where it is due, Cllr Paul Doughty acted promptly and has given an assurance that a hospital representative will attend the meeting. 

The meeting takes place on Wednesday, 14th January, 2015 starting at 5.30 pm. The venue is the George Hudson Board Room – 1st Floor West Offices (F045). It is open to the public and residents can register to speak.

Nick, in his Email to Cllr Doughty, said, 

“Given the ongoing and very public crisis covered extensively in the media regarding A&E at York Hospital, would you please consider putting the matter on the Agenda for the forthcoming Health Scrutiny Committee on 14th January.

 I believe the public interest would be well served by an update on the current situation, including current figures on the “care in community” places available to York Hospital – a lack of which may be exacerbating the problems at York Hospital. As you know – spare beds to enable admissions are created when patients are discharged and care in community places significantly help towards this situation – of which the City of York Council bears partial responsibility.

 It would help if we could know if the City of York Council is meeting its obligations and targets in this respect – so as to be of the most help possible to York Hospital in this time of unprecedented pressure on their services, including A&E.

 Hopefully you could also ensure that a representative from the hospital attends the meeting (I’m sure they would welcome the opportunity) and that they publish a factsheet indicating relative demand levels, comparing this and previous years, together with a root cause analysis of the reasons for the A&E targets not being met.”