House of Commons Library analysis suggests PM's A&E measure is problematic
This article has been updated.
Yesterday we covered a disagreement during Prime Minister's Questions over waiting times for NHS treatments.
Today the House of Commons Library has looked at another claim made in the same session, this time about A&E waiting times.
The Prime Minister said that average waiting times in A&E had dropped from 77 minutes under the last government, to 30 minutes now.
But according to the Library's analysis, the measure - the mean average time between when a patient arrives in A&E and when they are first assessed - has a number of issues with it.
For one thing, it doesn't reflect the time taken to treat patients, which has stayed flat in recent years. Nor does it reflect the total time patients have been spending in A&E, which seems to be on an upward trend.
[caption id="attachment_33613" align="alignnone" width="550"]
From House of Commons Library[/caption]
And because it's the mean time, rather than the median, it's sensitive to outlying data.
The bulk of drop in the measure described by Mr Cameron happened in April 2011, the month it became mandatory for it to be reported. As the Library says:
"it's plausible that the fall in the mean in April 2011 reflects an improvement in data collection, quality and reporting, rather than any genuine change in waiting times"
The following statement has been published in place of the Library's blog:
The blog post "Have A&E waiting times fallen?" has been removed by the House of Commons Library as it does not meet our expected standards of impartiality. A revised post will be uploaded as soon as possible.
We've been told the changes to the piece will relate to its tone, not its substance.