On 4-hour targets

4-Hour targets are valuable and useful: they provide information on capacity and workload. They do not determine or indicate the quality of care, nor do they determine or indicate clinical outcomes.

 

4-Hour targets are of no use on a day-to-day basis. They help plan future investments in staff numbers and training and in facilities and support processes. Clinicians do not have control over process times and for clinicians to act to effect mandated targets skews and compromises clinical care. To see a non-urgent case at 3 hours in preference to an urgent case at 35 minutes in order to meet a 4-hour target is nothing less than obtuse.

 

4-Hour targets represent a management metric, not a clinical one.