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Emergency Care

That point is worth looking into, and I will do so. We currently have the best performance ever from our NHS ambulance service, and we should include it in our congratulations. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire asked us to publish the urgent care strategy, and I dealt with that in mentioning the strategic health authorities. [Interruption.] I accept that my responses to the points that have been raised are of varying quality. It is sensible that SHAs should carry forward their vision, and we should help them and fund them to do that. Over the past 12 years, there have been real—indeed, dramatic—improvements in patient care. Patients no longer have to wait years for treatment after referral; at most they have to wait 18 weeks, and the average wait is about eight weeks. The vast majority of patients wait for less than four hours in accident and emergency. Let me put in perspective what this means for patients. A doctor I spoke to recently told me about the accident and emergency department in which he worked in 1995, where waits of 12 hours or more were so frequent that patients were asked for two meal choices when they arrived. Sheets were taped across the corridor to create makeshift wards. He now works in a hospital in the same area where accident and emergency patients are treated on average in just over an hour. The measures we have taken over the past 12 years have dramatically improved the quality of urgent and emergency care, as the Opposition motion recognises. The abolition of long waits for treatment is one of the NHS's finest achievements. Greater investment, more staff, better planning and strong leadership have transformed urgent and emergency care services for patients, and I commend the amendment to the House.