12 September 2003
Doctors have welcomed the government's move to refine an accident and emergency waiting time target.
By next year, no patient should wait longer than four hours in A&E before being discharged or admitted to hospital.
But it has emerged that in order to meet the target some patients were being moved while they still required the specialist treatment available only in casualty departments.
The Department of Health has acknowledged the problem and has promised to create a list of clinical exceptions to the four-hour limit.
However, it insisted it was not abandoning the target altogether.
PFsep2003
