Starmer to commit to ending “dangerous” A&E waiting times

Keir Starmer is set to commit the next Labour government to ending “dangerous” accident and emergency waiting times after it was revealed that 23,000 patients lost their lives in A&E last year.

The Labour leader will announce the party’s plans on Monday, which will form part of Labour’s “mission to make the NHS fit for the future”. Speaking ahead of the announcement, Wes Streeting pledged that Labour in government will “build an NHS that is there for you when you need it once again”.

According to NHS figures, obtained by the party through freedom of information requests, more than 23,000 patients lost their lives in A&E in 2022 – more than 5,500 more deaths than were recorded in 2019 and 4,000 more than in 2021.

Commenting today, the Shadow Health Secretary said: “The Conservatives’ failure over 13 years to properly staff or reform the NHS has a cost in lives. When Labour was last in government, patients in an emergency were treated in good time.

“It took 13 years for the Conservatives to break the NHS; it won’t be fixed overnight. But it will be the mission of the next Labour government to build an NHS that is there for you when you need it once again.”

The operational standard for A&E waiting times – introduced by Labour in the early 2000s – is that at least 95% of patients should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

According to a King’s Fund report in May last year, the NHS has not met the four-hour standard at national level in any year since 2013/14, and the standard has been missed in every month since July 2015.

The think tank said waiting times have “worsened substantially” in recent years and attributed the decline to a “decade of funding settlements that failed to keep up with demand for services and growing staff shortages”.

Labour will pledge to cut A&E waits and return to “safe waiting times” for the “vast majority” of patients. The party has already set out wider plans for reforming the NHS, proposing to reduce the burden on hospitals by providing more care in the community and putting a greater emphasis on prevention.

In a speech last month, Streeting said Labour wants to make the NHS “as much a Neighbourhood Health Service as it is a National Health Service”. He set out three principles on which the party’s reforms to primary care would be based: “healthcare on your doorstep”, “there for you when you need it” and “patients in control”.

Labour has also outlined plans to expand the NHS workforce, by doubling the number of medical school places, doubling the number of district nurses qualifying, training more than 5,000 new health visitors and creating 10,000 additional nursing and midwife placements per year – paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status.

Starmer launched the five “missions” that will form the basis of Labour’s next manifesto in a speech in February. The missions cover the economy, the NHS, crime, education and clean energy. The Labour leader has subsequently set out in more detail the party’s plans on the economy and crime.

Streeting told the BBC earlier this month that Starmer will announce the party’s mission on health “later this month”, which he said will be “shortly followed” by its plans to tackle inequality of opportunity.