Elderly ‘will suffer’ as NHS puts ops on hold
PLANS by the NHS to delay “nonurgent” operations would cause pain and misery among pensioners, charities warned yesterday.
Longer waits should be expected for hip and knee replacements, cataract removal and hernia operations as a “trade off” for improvement in other areas, Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, announced yesterday.
He wants to hit the four-hour A&E waiting time target and see better cancer care, he said.
But charities and pressure groups attacked the measure, saying the longer waits are most likely to affect the elderly, who will be left waiting in pain for medical treatment they have paid for with a lifetime of taxes.
Jan Shortt, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, said: “Not being able to walk properly or see very well places a huge strain on older people and their carers.
Distressing
“Delays in getting hips replaced or cataracts removed can make things worse in the long run and usually ends up in the patient taking longer to recover.”
Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, said: “Older people are the largest users of NHS services and it is vital that their needs are recognised within the system.”
And Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK, warned: “This makes no economic sense, as well as being deeply distressing for older people and their families.”
Unveiling a blueprint for the NHS for the next two years, Mr Stevens said other measures will cut the number of people needing to be sent to hospital for care, while hundreds of thousands of patients would no longer be referred to a consultant by their GP. Instead, GPs will be able to phone consultants to ask for advice.
The plans follow other cost-cutting measures, including banning prescriptions for cheap over-the-counter medicines like pain killers.
SIMON STEVENS, the head of the NHS, has said that patients will have to wait longer for what he calls “non-urgent” operations such as hip and knee replacements or cataract removal. These may classify as “non-urgent” for the bureaucrats in charge of the health service but for the people who need them any delay means more time spent in unnecessary pain and discomfort.
For people suffering from arthritic joints or who are struggling to see because of cataracts, having these issues dealt with swiftly can make an enormous improvement to their quality of life. In some cases the difference afterwards can seem little short of miraculous.
We need to have a grown-up debate about the future of the health service. It is clear that the structure, established in the 1940s, is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term. Costs are rising too quickly and there has to be a limit to how much taxpayers’ money is pumped into the NHS.
But Mr Stevens’ plan will do little to address the funding issues facing hospitals. On the whole the procedures he has targeted are relatively easy to perform and do not entail lengthy spells in hospital. Given the difference they make to patients they represent good value for money.
If he wants to save significant sums without hitting the quality of care available to the taxpaying British public, he would be better off slashing the number of middle management bureaucrats and addressing the costs of health tourism.