Barts Health NHS Trust exceeded its safe bed occupancy targets 92% per cent of days this December

Barts Health NHS Trust exceeded its safe bed occupancy targets 92% per cent of days this December.

New NHS figures show that Barts Health NHS Trust exceeded its target for safe levels of bed occupancy in 26 days out of 28 days this December. Hospitals are expected to ensure that no more than 85 per cent of beds area occupied on a given day, but across December, 93 per cent of Barts Health NHS Trust’s beds were occupied.

Labour Party Candidate Faiza Shaheen,responding to the figures, said:

“The people of Chingford and Woodford Green deserve so much better than this. I’ve spent several recent Christmas’s in Whipps Cross A&E with a sick mum and have witnessed first-hand the growing challenges.

“Thank goodness for all the staff at Barts Health NHS Trust who work so hard for patients, despite NHS cuts.

“The Tories have no plan to tackle the financial crisis facing our hospitals – their plans have put units across the country at risk, while beds are cut, staff numbers reduced and treatments rationed.

“Labour will give Barts Health NHS Trust and the whole of the NHS the money it needs. The NHS is a national treasure and must be protected.”

Across England, NHS New Year performance statistics showed that hospitals remain dangerously overcrowded.

Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary, responding to the latest national weekly winter data, said:“The New Year performance statistics reveal an NHS under considerable strain this winter after years of financial squeeze, chronic staff shortages and swingeing cuts to social care provision

“Thanks to the efforts of NHS staff who again have shown extraordinary effort, professionalism, leadership and dedication, services are not quite as bad at this point as last year. 

“But let’s be under no illusion: hospitals remain dangerously overcrowded, nearly 40,000 patients have had to wait in backed up ambulances so far this winter, while 54,000 sick patients endured waits of over four hours in November and 12 hour breaches more than doubled compared with last November.

“This is still unacceptably far from the standards expected, adding up to a winter of misery for patients and their families.

“In the coming days ministers must outline a credible plan to both restore standards of patient care where constitutional targets are met, while recruiting and training the staff our NHS now desperately and so obviously needs.”

Labour’s analysis of the latest weekly situation reports from 17^th to 30^thDecember reveals:

• Since the 3^rd of December, 39,426 patients have been stuck in the back of ambulances for over 30 minutes.
• Ambulance handover delays have also worsened over the last few weeks in an indication of rising pressures. There has been a 23% increase in patients stuck in the back of ambulances for over an hour over the past three weeks.