Birmingham MP Jess Phillips hits out at Tory party after 14 hour wait in A&E

Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips has hit out at the Conservative Party after an ambulance failed to arrive for her ill father.

Ms Phillips revealed on Twitter that her father was taken ill on Wednesday. She said that her brother was told their father needed a paramedic and an ambulance would be sent, but it never arrived.

In her Tweet, she used the hashtag #12YearsofTory - referring to the impact the Conservative Party has had on the NHS services over the years.

Posting on Twitter, she wrote: “My dad is ill, my brother called 111 at 10am. They said he needed a paramedic and would send an ambulance. It never came. I got back from London in my car this evening, I drove because I simply cannot rely on trains anymore in the UK. We are now in A&E #12YearsofTory.”

The Birmingham MP revealed on Twiter that she had been in A&E for 14 hours. She tweeted at 9pm on Wednesday (9 November) to say she was in the emergency department with her father, and revealed that she was still there at 9am on Thursday morning (10 November), before saying she had been in A&E for 14 hours.

Waititng times at A&E departments across the country have increased massively in recent years, and three hospitals in Birmingham failed to hit NHS A&E waiting time targets in May 2022.

The NHS benchmark is for at least 95% of patients attending A&E to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours but NHS England data shows 116 hospitals, out of 203, failed to hit the target in May.

Three Birmingham hospitals, including University Hospitals Birmingham, Sandwell And West Birmingham Hospital and the Birmingham Women’s And Children’s NHS Foundation Trust all failed to hit the target.

And the figures show that the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust was the second worst in the country for A&E waiting times in May, with just over half of attendees (54%) waiting less than four hours before being admitted, transferred or discharged.