Press release: NHS Confederation respond to Healthcare Commission review of admissions management

06 Oct 2006

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation which represents over 90 per cent of NHS organisations, said:

"The Healthcare Commission's recognition that trusts have delivered significant improvements in the past three years in reducing waiting times and improving admissions to hospitals is very welcome news for patients.

"The scale of the improvement in reducing waiting times should not be underestimated. Today in A&E departments, 95 per cent of people spend less than four hours in the department, up from 60 per cent in 2002. In addition, a few years ago many people were waiting more than 18 months between diagnosis and operation. Latest figures show that the average wait for treatment today is eight weeks.

"However, the 18 week target from when a patient sees their GP to when they receive treatment is a very challenging target for the NHS to meet as it will require many organisations to redesign how patients flow through the system. The Healthcare Commission is right to say that trusts should be looking at the patient's journey right through hospital.

"Many NHS organisations are looking at imaginative ways to better manage admissions to hospital. These include admitting patients on the same day as their surgery, reducing length of stay by caring for patients in their own homes post-surgery and improving the way that patients are treated in the community to reduce emergency admissions."

Commenting on variations in the number of patients reporting sharing a room with a patient of the opposite sex, Nigel Edwards commented:

"NHS trusts are working hard to provide single-sex accommodation to improve patients' privacy and dignity during their stay in hospital. Where mixed-sex wards do exist, they are often in older hospital buildings or to ensure that specialist care can be provided to groups of patients by hospital staff. However, hospitals go to great lengths to make sure that single-sex bays of four or five beds are provided within wards and that single-sex facilities, such as toilets and showers, are provided. Every effort is made by the NHS to ensure patients' dignity and privacy whilst still providing specialist care."

ENDS

Notes for editors

1. The NHS Confederation represents more than 90% of the organisations that make up the NHS. Its members include the majority of NHS acute trusts, ambulance trusts, foundation trusts, mental health trusts, primary care trusts, special health authorities and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.

 

Contact details

Contact Media Relations Manager Joanna Clason on 020 7074 3306 or 07798 571078 or Senior Media Officer Amy Darlington on 020 7074 3304 or 07767 770309. For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.

Back to media centre