Sussex health service in crisis, warns Jess Brown-Fuller MP

The shocking figures also showed that a staggering 14% of waits for people in Sussex who attended A&E in December were 12 hours or longer from the time they arrived. It comes as local health services in Chichester have been decimated by underfunding, leading to cuts to services, unacceptable delays in treatment and waiting times outside hospitals.

Local Liberal Democrat MP Jess Brown-Fuller said the government is “asleep at the wheel” having failed to grip the crisis in Chichester’s health service, putting patients at risk.

Jess called on the Health Secretary to come forward with an emergency plan to rescue Chichester’s A&Es from this crisis and protect patients who are suffering because of these long and dangerous delays. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) has previously said that long waits in A&E are estimated to have contributed to 14,000 deaths in 2023.

“It is a scandal that these dangerous delays have become normalised here in Chichester. A&Es in our area are at breaking point after years of the previous Conservative government’s shameful neglect and patients are paying the price,” said the Jess, who is also the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Primary Care

“Long waiting lists and concerns about healthcare provision in the Chichester area continues to be the top issue that constituents contact me about.The new government looks to be asleep at the wheel and has completely failed to get a grip on the winter crisis. We now need to see Ministers step up and finally begin to tackle this ongoing disaster.That means bringing forward an emergency plan to immediately protect patients from the consequences of these long delays,” said the Chichester MP.

"This response must include an urgent expansion of the number of hospital beds available in Chichester and a pandemic-style emergency recruitment campaign to bring staff out of retirement and back into our local health services workforce,” she said.

Jess is also calling for NHS Sussex to place a qualified clinician in every A&E waiting room, to track rapid deteriorations in those waiting for beds. This follows the devastating death of James Palmer-Bullock, a Chichester resident who was left in the A&E waiting room for over six hours with no clinical oversight.