Between April and June this year 98% of patients attending Accident and Emergency departments received treatment within four hours. This is the first time the NHS has sustained the 98% target through a full three-month period. The comparable figure for the same quarter last year was 94.7%. At the beginning of 2003, almost a quarter of patients spent more than four hours in A&E. This performance has been achieved against a background of increasing attendances.Modernisation of Accident and Emergency departments has been high on the NHS agenda for some five years. There have been substantial injections of funding and a radical re-think of management processes. Last year hospitals which met targets for dealing with accident and emergency patients received more than 100,000 pounds. They were able to use the money as extra capital funding to develop services across their hospitals.
The Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have joined together to form a cross party group to debate and comment on local government issues. The Group is set to become one of the largest and most significant of the registered All Party Parliamentary Groups, which have a long tradition in parliament as forums bringing together MPs to discuss issues of shared interest. The proposal to form the Group came from the Local Government Information Unit, who approached MPs to encourage the establishment of the group. The Unit has been concerned about the level of national political debate about the key issues facing local government. Wider support also came from councillors and others who were concerned that issues such as council tax and the balance of funding, were being used as political footballs.Priority areas of work for the Group include contributing to the debate on local government finance, the Ten Year Vision for Local Government currently being consulted on by the ODPM, and the role of directly elected Mayors.
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