NHS posts worst ever A&E performance results

The NHS has published its worst A&E performance results on record, as figures suggest the 111 phoneline, introduced to help ease the pressure on emergency services, has failed.

Labour said the data showed the health service was "on its knees", with patients stuck on trolleys for hours in overcrowded casualty departments.

What is 111?

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The 111 helpline was set up as an urgent but non-emergency number designed to replace the existing NHS Direct and work alongside 999.

However, the service has attracted controversy in the past, with a Daily Telegraph investigation in 2011 revealing that one in eight calls were going unanswered.

What do the statistics say?

Findings in the report include A&E patients being routinely stuck on trolleys for hours and the 111 service leaving people waiting for callbacks that never came.

"There has been nearly a fourfold increase in five years of emergency patients waiting more than four hours for a hospital bed," said Dr Jennifer Dixon, the chief executive of the Health Foundation.

Ambulance services also showed a decline, with just 68 per cent of life-threatening calls picked up within eight minutes, despite a target of 75 per cent.

What has the reaction been?

Labour's shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, claimed the figures were the result of bad government decisions. "Ministers need to accept that their policies are failing patients and failing the NHS," she said. "These figures show an NHS on its knees and in crisis."

The missed targets showed the critical need to change the way care is delivered, said the NHS Confederation's director of policy, Johnny Marshall.

"Hospitals are sandwiched between a constantly increasing demand for emergency care on the one hand and, on the other, difficulty discharging patients into the community due to social care cuts," he said.