NHS coped well with pressures of winter: watchdog

The NHS coped well with the traditional winter demand and patients received a better service than the NHS has previously been able to provide, the public service's watchdog said today.

This was the finding of an assessment by the Emergency Care Tsar, Sir George Alberti, which was today presented to the Health Secretary John Reid.

Sir George Alberti said that this winter's "success story" for the NHS was largely as result of the increase in government funding.

"Winter is the busiest time of year for the health service. More people are sick, more people have accidents and there is generally more demand for treatment and care. In the past it was the time of year which NHS staff used to dread," he said.

"Of course there will always be problems in the NHS, as you would expect in a service which treats one million patients every 36 hours.

"Some parts of the NHS have been extremely busy this year but overall I have been very encouraged by the obvious improvements.

"We can be confident that patients will receive the same high standard of service from the NHS in January as they would expect to receive in June."

John Reid thanked NHS staff for their "tremendous efforts" and also offered thanks to the 71% of pensioners who had the flu jab in "record numbers this year" – which alleviated some of the workloads within wards.

He added: "Not only have the improvements we have made over the last couple of years been sustained, they are being surpassed in many places. It's the dedication and commitment of staff that are producing these results and better services for patients."

Sir George Alberti's assessment highlighted improvements such as: over 90% of patients were seen and treated in under four hours of arrival at A & E throughout the winter period - compared to 80% last winter; and since January 2000 there has been a 33% increase in critical care beds (781 beds) which exceeds the NHS Plan commitment of a 30% increase.

Also, delays before admission were significantly reduced. There were 109 12-hour waits reported compared to 1,184 in the same period last year. This was still not acceptable and the NHS is working hard to improve performance even further, the report said.

(gmcg)