Consistent improvement needed after mixed progress during NHS ‘sprint’

Responding to the latest monthly NHS performance statistics, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Research Sarah Scobie said:

“Today’s data shows the NHS has made real progress in February and March to try to meet its interim targets. The fact that these improvements have not quite been fast enough is a reminder that the ‘sprint’ to improve waiting times is only the start of a marathon to come.

“Budgets are tight and spread across many different priorities, and big structural reforms lurk on the horizon. The challenge for the NHS will be whether improvements are sustainable or just a quick boost that soon fades away, as we have seen before.

“A&E waiting times are a persistent problem. The NHS has improved – as we often see between February and March – coming within a percentage point of hitting the interim target for only 22% of patients to spend over four hours in A&E before admission, transfer or discharge. But A&E is facing the highest level of dissatisfaction among NHS services [1] and the official target of only 5% of patients waiting four hours has not been met for more than a decade.

“There is brighter news on ambulance response times, with the average time for ‘category two’ dispatches for emergencies like heart attacks or stroke coming in under the 30-minute target limit. Health leaders will hope this is a staging post to bringing response times down to the 18-minute standard in the NHS constitution.

“With a ‘sprint’ backed by extra money in recent months, the government can point to a 1.1% improvement against the headline interim target for 65% of cases to begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. Any improvement will be encouraging for many patients who have experienced waiting far too long for their care. But a return to the shorter waits the public expects will require consistent improvement that has not been seen for years.

“NHS England's new breakdown of ‘unreported removals’ [2], based on a snapshot of some patients in this category, is a step towards the transparency we need but also a reminder that these statistics remain far from straightforward to interpret.”