Ashworth responds to Hancock's suggestion that A&E target might be scrapped

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, responding to Matt Hancock (on five live) suggesting that A&E target might be scrapped, said:

"Changing the A&E target won’t magic away the problems in our overcrowded hospitals, with patients left on trolleys in corridors for hours and hours.

"Any review of targets must be transparent and based on watertight clinical evidence, otherwise patients will think Matt Hancock is trying to move the goalposts to avoid scrutiny of the government's record.

"After years of austerity under the Tories, the government's first priority must be to give the NHS the funding and staff it needs to end the waiting time crisis."

Ends

Notes to editors (transcript) 

Hancock: "…No. Because targets have to be clinically appropriate.  And the four-hour target in A&E which is often taken as, and has been in the past, taken as the top way of measuring what’s going on in hospitals...

"..the problem with that target is that increasingly people can be treated on the day and able to go home. That is much better for the patient. It’s also better for the NHS and yet the way that that’s counted in the target doesn’t work.

“So it’s far better to have targets that are clinically appropriate, supported by clinicians so we’ve got clinicians looking at that. It’s best if that is led by the doctors.”