§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner)My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health has made the following Written Ministerial Statement today.
Today I announce the publication of the Department of Health's 2004 Autumn Performance Report (Cm 6417). Copies have been placed in the Library. It shows the progress my department has made towards achieving its public service agreement targets.
The autumn performance report shows that there have been significant further improvements in access to services. The number of National Health Service patients waiting longer than 13 weeks for an out-patient appointment has fallen from 160,745 to 77,503 over the past year. In addition, the number of people waiting more than six months for an in-patient appointment fell from 163,230 to 69,638. During October 2004, 96.4 per cent of all accident and emergency attenders were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival. It is now possible to offer over 99 per cent of patients a general practitioner's appointment within two working days or a primary care professional appointment within one working day.
Patient satisfaction is increasing; the 2003–04 patient survey results showed that 98 per cent of patients rated the care they received from ambulance trusts as excellent, very good or good, and the number of adult in-patients rating their care as excellent has increased by four percentage points since 2001–02.
77WSPremature death rates from heart disease among people under 75 have fallen by 27.1 per cent since the baseline of 1995–97; premature deaths from cancer have fallen by 12.2 per cent over the same period. Suicide rates in England are now at their lowest level on record.
These are just some of the recent achievements of the NHS. These improvements have been made in a demanding year through the hard work, skills and passion of hundreds of thousands of staff in the NHS and its partner organisations, and the increased funding the Government are investing in the NHS.