An official NHS England survey has found that local hospitals are struggling under record pressure as thousands of patients in Brighton and Hove go to A&E after they failed to get an appointment with their family doctor the last time they tried.
IN Brighton and Hove around 2,700 people went to an A&E department when they could not see a local GP.
Across England, nearly one million patients (930,901) turned to A&E when they couldn’t see a GP.
Following the Government’s decision to abolish the 48-hour appointment guarantee after the last election, the survey also found one in four patients waits a week or more for an appointment to see a doctor.
Earlier this month, Ed Miliband set out a five-point plan to rescue struggling A&E departments following a lack of action from the Government. The measures included immediate support for GPs to offer appointments this winter.
Labour has also pledged to invest £100 million in GP surgeries – saved by scrapping the Governments NHS market rules that waste millions on lawyers’ fees and contract tendering – to guarantee appointments within 48 hours or on the same day for those who need it.
Jamie Reed MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister, said: “David Cameron has made it harder for people to get a GP appointment and it’s left people turning to overstretched A&E departments.
“Patients are phoning the surgery day after day only to be disappointed. It’s like getting sought-after concert tickets, sitting for hours early morning with the phone on redial. But sadly, too many people are forced to give up and go to A&E.
“David Cameron caused this A&E crisis and his complacency is now a danger to patients. Labour has committed to investing an extra £2.5 billion each year – over and above the Tories – to recruit 8,000 more GPs and 20,000 nurses. We will scrap the Government’s NHS market and invest the savings in helping people to get a GP appointment within 48 hours.”
Nancy Platts, Labours’ Parliamentary Candidate in Brighton Kempton and Peacehaven, said: “We are now starting to get a real sense of what’s causing the crisis in our A&E Departments. Our staff in the NHS work incredibly hard but how can they be expected to cope when around 2,700 people in our area were forced into the local A&E Departments because they couldn’t see a doctor. Cameron and this government are failing thousands of people living here when we need it the most – when we are sick. Every day it seems, we are getting more and more evidence that we simply can’t trust the Tories with our NHS.”
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