Stockport Labour Group has summoned local NHS bosses to question the performance of Stepping Hill Accident and Emergency over Christmas and New Year.
The move comes after new figures for the week ending 4th January showed that there were 1,781 attendances at Stepping Hill with 724 patients having to wait for more than 4 hours after arrival to their admission, transfer or discharge.
At just 59.3% of patients treated in 4 hours or less, Stepping Hill has the worst figures in the whole of England. By comparison, the average figure for England during the same week was 86.7%. The overall NHS target is for 95% of attendees to be seen within 4 hours.
Ahead of a meeting on 20th January, Labour’s Chair of the Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee Councillor Tom McGee has requested an urgent report from Stockport NHS Foundation Trust on what further action is being taken to improve performance at the start of 2015. Labour will ask why plans presented by the Trust in 2014 to manage increasing pressures at Stepping Hill appear so dramatically not to have worked.
Cllr McGee said ‘With more than 4 in every 10 patients who attended local A & E over the New Year being forced to wait for more than 4 hours, and figures revealing that Stepping Hill is now the worst performing department in England, it is in crisis.
‘Despite the valiant efforts of frontline staff working in extremely difficult circumstances, Stepping Hill continues to struggle and more urgent action needs to be taken to turn things around. This situation potentially exposes patients to an unacceptable level of risk. The safety of patients is paramount – clinicians have assured me this is the case in the past and I will be seeking further reassurances to ensure that is the priority in the future.’
Labour Councillors will seek assurances that a more robust plan is in in place to reduce the numbers of patients presenting at Stepping Hill with non-urgent conditions. This has been a particular issue since Stockport’s heavily-used NHS Walk-In Centre was an early victim of Coalition cuts, closing in September 2010 in order to save £800,000.
The Centre, located on the A6 in Stockport opened in 2009, as part of Labour’s National Equitable Access to Primary Care scheme, and treated three times the anticipated number of patients during its year in operation.
Stepping Hill Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department serves 320,000 people across Stockport, High Peak and some parts of East Cheshire.