Picker responds to the Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) plan 2025/26

Responding to the Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) plan 2025/26, Chris Graham, Group CEO at Picker, said:

“It’s great to see the UEC plan published before the summer, affording providers time to digest and implement the plan ahead of the busiest winter months.

“We know that the public are deeply concerned about access to UEC services, with the latest British Social Attitudes survey results showing that more than half of people are ‘very’ or ‘quite’ dissatisfied with accident and emergency departments – a far higher proportion than ever before.

“The 2024 Urgent and Emergency Care survey, which Picker manages for the Care Quality Commission (CQC), also found that patients are generally having poor experiences in UEC. People who have a long wait for an initial assessment or who are spending more than four hours in A&E report particularly poor experiences. Tackling waiting times is therefore important to improving people’s experiences and restoring public satisfaction with services.

“The plan’s frank acknowledgement of where we are today and its consideration of the wider system and how it interacts with UEC is very welcome, as is additional capital investment. The focus on increasing data available within the system and publicly is positive, as is investment in the Connected Care Records programme.

“We would have liked the plan to include more detail about how patients will be engaged in reforms to UEC, using co-design to ensure that efforts to build an NHS ‘fit for the future’ also create a system that is person centred.

“Today’s plan provides short term clarity for providers in a system that is undergoing significant wider reforms – we look forward to the ten year plan’s publication in the coming weeks and the clarity it should bring beyond 2025/26. Ultimately there will be a need for coordinated, person centred working across the health and care system – including through primary and social care – to ensure that patients and the public can access the right services, in the right place, and at the right time.”