Your NHS: For Better or Worse

Fiona Bruce and Nicky Campbell present Your NHS

Two years ago - on the first BBC NHS Day - we asked you what you considered were the priorities for the health service.

Thousands of you responded. Since then millions of extra pounds have been spent improvements.

Throughout the day on the BBC we'll be looking at what that money has been spent on and whether or not your concerns have been met.

One of the top five things you wanted addressed was A&E waiting times.

On Breakfast, this morning:

Breakfast's Sarah Campbell was at Derbyshire's Royal Infirmary accident and emergency department to see the situation there.

Sarah spoke to Muriel Dewar, Director of nursing. She said:

We have made concrete attempts to reduce waiting times. We stream our patients differently, we are recruiting more staff, we have a pit stop for really sick patients. The figures re waiting times are not accurate, last week we only achieved 87% being seen in 4 hours. But a while ago in one week we achieved 92%, it just depends what demand we have in a particular week.

We also put your questions to the NHS Emergency Care Tsar - Sir George Alberti. He said

Having a target has revolutionised the A&E. It has focussed attention. The way we have it set up is you'll be seen and sorted in the first batch of time. To see a specialist you may have to wait. We measure our success by patient outcomes. We ask them if they were treated and are they happy. Unhappy people are less common now than 2 years ago. The four hours limit can produce difficulty. It can put strain on wards but we need to look at the whole system.

We asked you to e-mail us your thoughts and concerns regarding A&E services in the health service: Do you think our emergency health services are good enough? What would you like to see done to improve them? Use this form to e-mail us your thoughts.

If we want sustained investment in the health service we will have to pay for it Tony Blair, in 2002

A&E Waiting times

Two years ago 80% of patients were being seen by doctors in accident and emergency in under 4 hours

By winter 2003 90% of patients were being seen under 4 hours

By the end of 2004 the government have set a target of 98% of patients will be seen in under 4 hours>

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Your NHS: For Better or Worse is the flagship programme in the BBC's Your NHS event day, presented by Nicky Campbell and Fiona Bruce.

It will be broadcast on Wednesday, 24 March 2004, at 21:00 GMT on BBC One and on the website.

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