Matt Hancock has signalled that four-hour waiting targets for A&E are likely to be scrapped for the NHS in England after the worst figures on record this winter.

The health secretary said it would be better if targets were “clinically appropriate” and the “right targets”, as he defended the NHS’s failure to meet the standard that 95% of patients attending A&E should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

The target was put under review by Theresa May’s government and the NHS unveiled plans last March to pilot changes that would prioritise patients with serious conditions while patients with minor problems could wait longer than four hours.

A decision about the flagship four-hour target is due to be taken by NHS England in the coming months.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Hancock defended the NHS’s performance even though waiting times in December were the worst since the target began in 2004.

Asked if the target would stay, he said: “We will be judged by the right targets. Targets have to be clinically appropriate. The four-hour target in A&E – which is often taken as the top way of measuring what’s going on in hospitals – the problem with that target is that increasingly people are treated on the day and are able to go home. It’s much better for the patient and also better for the NHS and yet the way that’s counted in the target doesn’t work.

“It’s far better to have targets that are clinically appropriate and supported by clinicians.”

In December, hospital-based A&Es only managed to treat and then admit, transfer or discharge 68.6% of arrivals within four hours. That was the smallest proportion in any month since the target was created in 2004 and the first time performance has slipped below 70%.

In all, 98,452 patients spent at least four hours on a trolley in A&E as they waited for a bed.

Hancock said waiting times had deteriorated because there were a million extra A&E visits in 2019 and argued the best way of dealing with this was more money for the NHS. He said the government’s new NHS bill promising an extra £33.9bn a year by 2024 was the biggest cash increase ever.

Hancock was challenged over his figures as it is nowhere near the biggest funding injection in real terms when inflation is taken into account.

The idea of ending the waiting time target has raised fears it could lead to patients being left untreated for hours and concern that the move might be motivated by political expediency rather than patient safety.

It also does not address the issue of thousands of patients forced to wait in corridors and on trolleys because beds cannot be found for them after assessment at A&E.

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Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “Changing the A&E target won’t magic away the problems in our overcrowded hospitals, with patients left on trolleys in corridors for hours and hours.

“Any review of targets must be transparent and based on watertight

clinical evidence, otherwise patients will think Matt Hancock is trying to move the goalposts to avoid scrutiny of the government’s record.

“After years of austerity under the Tories, the government’s first

priority must be to give the NHS the funding and staff it needs to end the waiting time crisis.”

Last year, Dr Taj Hassan, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said: “In our expert opinion scrapping the four-hour target will have a near-catastrophic impact on patient safety in many emergency departments that are already struggling to deliver safe patient care in a wider system that is failing badly.”

In his round of broadcast interviews, Hancock also claimed the government would solve the longstanding crisis in social care within the year.

He told LBC it was “extremely likely” a solution would be found in the next 12 months. “The PM and I are absolutely determined to solve this problem that has bedevilled people for years. We’ve got the majority. We’ve got to make it happen.”