City hospitals suffer deep crisis Waiting lists continue to soar as health chiefs forced to make massive cuts
SHOCKING new figures reveal NHS waiting lists are soaring across Birmingham, while health chiefs are being forced to find savings of hundreds of millions of pounds. The figures show that since 2013: The number of people waiting more than four hours in A&E in Birmingham hospitals has more than doubled;
66 per cent more cancer patients are having to wait more than 62 days for treatment ;
65 per cent more people have had to wait more than 18 weeks to receive consultant-led treatment.
At the same time, Birmingham’s NHS is now mired in a financial crisis. Chiefs say they are being forced to find cuts of £155.5 million this year and £87 million next year.
And together, two of the city’s key hospitals, along with the city’s primary care system – which funds GPs and health visitors – are set to go overbudget by £23 million.
The figures were revealed in answers to Freedom of Information requests from Birmingham Hill MP Liam Byrne (Lab).
He said: “This shocking picture confirms what we all feared: Birmingham’s NHS is in crisis. The scale of the cuts to our city’s social care budgets is overloading our doctor’s surgeries and hospitals just at the time that Hodge health chiefs are being forced to find hundreds of millions of pounds of new cuts.
“The NHS treasure.
“Frontline staff are telling me that they’ve never felt pressure like this – and morale is at rock bottom. is our greatest national
“Inspectors warn Birmingham’s mental health services for children and young people need ‘urgent improvements’.
“We simply cannot go on like this. It’s taking us back to the worst days of the 1980s.”
He said he was planning to bring together frontline staff, health leaders and trade unions for an emergency summit to discuss the crisis. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS remains extremely busy but, despite the pressure, almost 3,000 more people were treated within four hours every single day in January compared to the same time last year.
“The Government supported the NHS this winter with an additional £437 million of funding, and gave it top priority in the recent Budget with an extra £2.8 billion allocated over the next two years.”