§ Ms MunnTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the outcome of the consultation exercise on clinical exceptions to the four hour emergency care target. [144888]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonThe target for accident and emergency departments is that, by December 2004, all patients should be discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours of arrival. However, front line emergency care staff have told us that in a small proportion of cases it may not be clinically appropriate to move patients within that time frame—for example when they are undergoing active resuscitation.
Responses to the consultation exercise that we announced in September confirmed that. We have listened to the advice we received and have now reached a consensus with the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine, the Faculty of Accident and Emergency Medicine and the Royal College of Nursing Emergency Care Association on the type of cases that can be regarded as clinical exceptions to the target. The 1001W agreement is available on the Department of Health website at: http://www.doh.gov.uk/emergencycare/ clinical-exceptions. htm
Other than in these exceptional cases the target remains in place, and National Health Service trusts must still do everything they can to avoid any breaches of the target that are not clinically necessary.