Jeremy Hunt gives NHS 10 months to solve A&E crisis Mr Hunt told delegates: "We are putting together a strategy focusing on the group of people who if we help, we can also do the most to relieve the pressure on A&E. That is vulnerable older people, the people who are heaviest users of the NHS, people with multiple long-term conditions. We are putting together a vulnerable older people's plan with three elements, and we would welcome your input to that plan, which we hope to conclude by the autumn and implement from April next year. Jamie Reed, the shadow health minister, claimed that Mr Hunt's comments were an admission that the A&E crisis has been triggered by cuts to local authority budgets for primary care. "Older people are being left without the care they need at home, meaning more are having to be admitted to hospital, while many others are getting stuck in hospital beds at the end of their treatment because the help isn't there at home," he said. Speaking after his appearance in Liverpool, Mr Hunt told ITV News that the NHS had to take a "totally different approach to patient safety" following the case of Lydia Spilner, a 100-year-old grandmother who died from dehydration at Leicester Royal Infirmary in February last year. Medical staff had repeatedly ignored pleas from Mrs Spilner's family to put her on a drip. Mr Hunt said: "I think that story is absolutely devastating and I personally never cease to be horrified. As Health Secretary, I read stories every day because I see the letters that come in when things have gone wrong in the NHS and we have to have a totally different approach to patient safety.