ED waiting times at record lengths

National introduced a target of 95% of ED patients being seen within six hours. This saw the proportion rise from 86% to 95% and then stay in the 93% to 94% range for some years.

Labour came in and scrapped the target. Here’s what happened:

• Sep 2018 89.1%
• Sep 2019 84.8%
• Sep 2020 86.6%
• Sep 2021 80.2%
• May 2022 74%

Note that it dropped well before the pandemic, and has continued to drop during it.