A quarter of Britons who need hospital treatment are not bothering to go to A&E out of fear of waiting times, according to a poll by the Liberal Democrats. The survey of more than 2,200 people across the UK reveals the lengths to which people went if they needed to use emergency help in the past two years, but decided not to. Almost 1 in 5 (18 per cent) people who said they needed to use A&E but were worried about waiting times said that they ignored the advice of their GP or the NHS 111 service to go to their local hospital.
Of those who needed A&E but did not go, one in ten (11 per cent) made homemade slings for their limbs, and almost one in three said that they either treated wounds themselves (31 per cent) or prescribed themselves medication (32 per cent). Overall, a quarter of all UK adults (25 per cent) have needed to go to A&E in the past two years but did not do so due to long waiting times. Of those, more than half (56 per cent) said they suffered in pain as a result.
The 2010 Handbook to the NHS Constitution outlined a four-hour A&E waiting time target, stating that at least 95 per cent of patients attending emergency department should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. But after years of failing to meet the pledge , an intermediary threshold target of 76 per cent to be hit by March 2024 was introduced in December 2022 with further improvement expected in 2024/25. The 2024/25 priorities and operational planning guidance set out a new objectiv.