Jeremy Hunt apparently said on Good Morning Britain this morning that:
This is always the busiest week but we need to work with the public to understand that accident and emergency departments are there for what it says on the tin, for accidents and emergencies.
I just thought I would check. The most recent weekly admission data for A&E departments I could find covered 2010 to 2105. I plotted total admissions:
There is a much larger version here.
But just for the record, the troughs are always in the winter - and often at almost exactly this time of the year. The peaks are always in the summer.
Mr Hunt is not telling the truth. We've just been through the quietest time of the year.
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Interesting data!
Reading this – as weather gets warmer we all run outside and have accidents!
Funny dip every August too. Perhaps we’re all abroad clogging up Spanish A&Es?
Hunt is a running joke in this role.
Summer admissions are, I am sure, less serious and less likely to go in but the A&E obsession in winter is clearly wrong
The problem is not there
You’re quite right – the clogging up of A&E is just a reflection of bed pressures downstream in the hospital. What happens when you can’t get people into the house? They crowd around the front door.
Jeremy Hunt et al, probably deliberately, do not recognise this and therefore cannot provide the right solutions.
His call for less people to go to A&E is not the answer, as people who do not need to be there (medically) can be whittled down quite easily and sent on their way.
It is time Mr Hunt for your HExit.
I decided a while ago that life was too short to listen to Jeremy Hunt – I busied myself doing other things while he was on.
It might be interesting to fit a sinusoid with a linear offset y= k+c*t+A*sin(w*t+phi) but it does indeed look as if summer in general has much higher admissions than winter. If you can provide a link to the raw data it would be fairly trivial to do and I could try wednesday when I have some time
It’s on its way
I know that you have said that we should not treat our politicians badly and that name calling etc., does not sit comfortbly with you (nor me really) but this man Hunt is nothing but a charlatan – plain and simple.
He is the velvet glove disguising a very deadly weapon – the Tory desire to smash the Health Service to bits and bring American style over-priced profit making medicine to the UK.
Perhaps the leader of the Opposition should say something about it? Strangely quiet, as always.
I thought Corbyn had asked for an emergency statement on the NHS?
Jeremy Hunt will be saying a few words
What you mean, Joe V, is that Labour’s reaction to the NHS crisis has not been widely reported (can’t think why…). All Labour Party members have received an email today from JC (his office, I presume) asking members to join a day of action on 21st Jan. Now it would be good to get other people besides party members out on the street on this issue, so if you can help spread the word…
But Labour says it will balance the books
So it has no plan worth giving that name
You may not have noticed, but Labour are not in government and are not likely to be for a long time. I really do not think that people are gagging to hear exactly how Labour will fund expenditure on health at this moment.
Whenever I post something about the state of NHS on Facebook, my tory ‘friends’ always tell me that their local experience is exemplary (I’m alright, Jack). The friends who are ‘neutral’ about party politics always rush to say that the NHS should be taken out of the political sphere!
I disagree
Your news that Jeremy Hunt is lying is not surprising, but your data are. I suspect that there may be a big difference in the ratio of accidents to emergencies in summer versus winter. Are there data on the proportion of cases requiring admission to hospital?
This is A&E admissions
I admit I did not have time to do everything
I have a day job to do as well
Also important are the acute admissions that don’t preset to ED such as GPs’ emergency referrals. These are often admitted via an ED connected acute admissions unit. Although this is a separate stream of people, they are bound to have an interactive effect. eg. I find that when an acute unit is pressured, I am often asked to send patients direct to ED rather to the AAU. Although now I am more likely to be asked to keep them at home.
On another point- the first big spike after January is always February. That is what we will see next.
I am aware of this issue
Have been married to a GP for a long time
And February is going to be grim
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/urgent-emergency-care/urgent-and-emergency-care-mythbusters
Seems they and I used the same data
The charts are nicely interactive.
Agreed
Very interesting data. Thanks. I am very inclined to accept your interpretation .. but want to check ….could it be that people have more serious issues in winter .. so they stay in hospital longer. This blocks beds and means that more folks are awaiting ‘admission’… perhaps by lying on a trolley in a corridor.
ie If I am lying on a trolley waiting for a bed to become free … am I counted as an ‘admission’ or am I missed in these stats?
If this is how the stats are generated it could be that hospitals are busier .. and at the same time there are fewer admissions. Thanks!
I have little doubt there are more serious issues in winter
But the point is we’re always told it is an A&E crisis. This data shows it is not. The problem is further along the system
If you go on the peoples assembly website, you will see that various demonstrations are being organised this week and into the future, mainly based around Hunt must Go.
I see little or no benefit to that
Hunt goes and the next person will have the same policy
Labour really has to say something and not offer tokens
You are right about current Labour Party attitudes, Richard. Some of us are trying to change it from within, but everyone who seeks the changes you advocate can choose their own course of action. Currently the only political party able to push through such changes is Labour – but things may alter as the economic situation worsens.
All points accepted
Thanks
The lie was repeated today by May.
And in much of the media
Here’s another strand to consider:
https://theconversation.com/heart-attacks-are-more-common-in-january-heres-why-70298?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20January%209%202017%20-%206443&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20January%209%202017%20-%206443+CID_7a566417552d8209c12adb2e0191f29e&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Heart%20attacks%20are%20more%20common%20in%20January%20%20heres%20why
A colleague of mine was admitted to hospital just before Christmas (luckily it was just a scare). She was well looked after but noted that the biggest demand she saw on the ward she stayed in for 3 days under observation was the amount of idiots coming in who had obviously had too much alcohol.
All too often these people who were drunk were loud and abusive and often needed to be restrained – soaking up ward resources.
When she spoke to staff they said that dealing with drunks was now ‘an everyday part of the job’.
Fantastic eh? Our drinks companies are out there making millions whist the NHS is starved of it millions when dealing with the schmucks who cannot drink responsibility as a consequence of a system that does not want them to because the drinks industry lobby is too powerful.
When all is said and done, this is after all another more recent pressure on the NHS.
Until we start treating Hunt’s actions as treason (attempt to impair the well-being of a state to which one owes allegiance) we will get nowhere.
‘It’s always bad in winter and the NHS has a plan”
…it is under the Tories
1987/88
1995/96
WORTH READING: The crises of winters past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/251375.stm
But the emergency *admissions* by week, averaged over the 5 year period, looks quite different : http://imgur.com/a/zAknk
Not that I am trying to defend Hunt…. I just thought the claim that this time of year is “quiet” in A&E doesn’t quite ring true.
So why does A&E data – whichever version you use – say it is?
I don’t think the admissions data does say this time of year is quiet. I guess it depends what you mean by “this time of year”. I’m looking at weeks 50, 51, 52 and 1 – which all have above average admission rate. I would say that period is the busiest time of year for admissions. I’m ignoring the below average dip at weeks 3, 4 – because we haven’t reached that point in 2017 yet.
I think it’s a stretch to get to what you’re saying
The data says the first week of January is, on average, the busiest of the year by admissions.
What I find a stretch, is to compare what is happening on the 9th January 2017, with the average for the full month of January from previous years. The data clearly shows this is an unfair comparison.
If you can find that, so be it
I can’t
Hi,
A few points – firstly I think you might be getting attendances and admissions mixed up – attendance is turning up at an Emergency Department, admission is being admitted from the department into hospital. Both do show seasonal variation.
Secondly, it is extremely simplistic to look at attendance data and state that Emergency Departments are not busy. The complexity of the workload and the ability of the ED to move patients into the rest of the hospital are probably greater factors into how long people spend in the ED.
As much as I hate to admit Jeremy Hunt is right on anything, even a broken clock tells the time right twice a day – and my own day to day experience says we are actually very, very busy at the moment. But, who knows? February may be even worse this year…
Andrew
(Emergency Medicine Registrar)
I agree with all that
But the opint I was making was that the issue is not in A&E – it is beyond A&E – and I think that is supported by the data
As with Cameron, Hunt (my MP…) is there to act as May’s lightning conductor, to keep the heat away from her. I feel that May herself needs to be targeted much more, not least after her ‘social justice’ pitch, and given that she chose to keep Hunt in place.
Hunt will be sacrificed sooner or later, to be replaced by someone just as bad (think of his predecessor), unless May really feels that her personal reputation is on the line
Richard, not that this changes your argument much, but just on a point of information, I think you have taken column H from the data, which is “Total Attendances” at A&E each week. It was for example 391,395 in the week ending 7 November 2010.
“Total Emergency *Admissions*” is in column T, and that was 104,414 in the week ending 7 November 2010. In almost every week of that data, total admissions is 24 or 25% of the total attendances, given or take a percentage point or two.
Th trends are the same – your point is fair though