Government meets same day emergency care targets

The NHS has met its urgent and emergency recovery plan ambition to roll out same day emergency care to every hospital in England, helping to free up beds and keep people out of hospital by as much as 30% in some NHS Trusts.

In the past 12 months, there were 206,446 more patients discharged on the same day having received the care that they needed, rather than having to stay overnight in hospital (from 1,817,683 in the year to January 2023 to 2,024,129 in the year to January 2024).

Emergency care services run 12 hours a day, seven days a week and help staff to assess, diagnose and treat hundreds of thousands of patients a year as well as supporting patients to go home after receiving the care that they need. The addition of these services helps NHS organisations free up beds, reduce the risk of infection, and can help boost patient recovery, alongside contributing to financial savings both for the NHS and patients.

Same day emergency care includes medical, surgical or specialist treatment, such as paediatrics and gynaecology.

Health leaders said that the expansion of same-day emergency care and corresponding drop in overnight hospital stays is testament to the planning and hard work of NHS leaders and their teams.

Rory Deighton, director of the NHS Confederation’s Acute Network, said: “This has been one of the toughest winters ever for the NHS, so it is great to see that the health service has met its ambition to roll out same day emergency care to every hospital in England.

“Without these services the NHS could have faced insurmountable pressures, with data over winter showing that beds were filling up as quickly as they could be opened with bed occupancy above safe levels and too many patients who were medically well enough to go home stuck in hospital beds due to a lack of support in the community.

“But while this scheme has been successful the pressure on the NHS and its staff this winter has still been immense. The combination of winter viruses, staff absences and industrial action has led to long waits for ambulances or in A&E, critical incidents being declared and patients receiving care in corridors and overflow wards. This must not become the new normal.”

A tough winter for emergency care

It comes as latest statistics show that A&E departments had the busiest month ever in March with 2.35 million attendances, 8.6% higher than the number of attendances in March 2023 (2.17 million). There were over 560,000 emergency admissions in March, 6.6% higher than the same month last year (532,000).

Performance data shows that ambulance response times in March improved across all categories, with most serious callouts receiving a response in an average of 8 minutes 20 seconds, down from 8 minutes 49 seconds a year ago despite higher demand – 6% more incidents than in March 2023.

The King Fund, however, said that the latest statistics show that whilst winter pressures may not have dominated headlines as much as last year, the NHS is stuck in a cycle of poor performance.

Danielle Jefferies, Senior Analyst at The King’s Fund, said: “As we approach the end of the winter period, it is possible to draw comparisons on how the NHS fared this season compared to last year. The narrative of waiting 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive when a person has had a stroke has become normalised. Whilst bed occupancy, flu cases, and delays to discharge from hospital all relatively similar to last year, it is worth remembering at the time many referred to it as the toughest winter the NHS had experienced in recent memory.

“The public are acutely aware of not being able to access all NHS services easily when they or their families need them. While the public stand by the principle of the NHS being free at the point of use, the latest British Social Attitudes Survey shows that public satisfaction with how the NHS is run has fallen to 24% – the lowest level recorded since the survey began 41 years ago. Reasons for dissatisfaction include long waiting times for GPs and hospital appointments, staff shortages and the view that the government does not spend enough on the health service.

“While the latest NHS planning guidance for this year sets out ambitions to slowly improve performance, it will be a tough and long journey for the government to also recover public satisfaction. This will involve further progress to resolve industrial action, reduce lengthy waits for care, improve staffing levels and investment. In the long term, the solutions to improving performance will lie in bolstering out-of-hospital care such as primary, community and social care services, making health and care a more attractive place to build a career, and ramping up efforts to help people live healthier lives.”