Cancel ops to free up beds, hospitals told

HOSPITALS have been told to cancel thousands of operations to prepare for a surge of patients after Christmas.

Guidelines sent out by an emergency panel of NHS officials advised trusts to do whatever they can to free up beds.

This includes cutting back on non-urgent work including hip and knee replacements, outpatient appointments and scans.

The NHS is bracing itself for the busiest period of the year and there is usually a spike in A&E attendances immediately after New Year.

Officials have been heavily advertising GP surgery and pharmacy opening hours in an attempt to discourage the public from going to hospital.

Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director chairman of the National Emergency Pressure Panel, urged the public to ‘bear with us’.

‘NHS staff are working flat out to cope with seasonal pressures and ensure patients receive the best possible care,’ he said.

‘However, given the scale of the challenge, hospitals should be planning for a surge that comes in the New Year by freeing up beds and staff where they can. This will also reduce last- minute cancellations which are unfair to patients and their families.

‘Patients deserve as much notice as possible if their nonurgent treatment is delayed and I hope that they will bear with us during this testing time for the health service.’

Yesterday NHS figures showed that almost 1,300 hospital beds were closed due to the winter vomiting bug norovirus – almost 10 per cent of the total number of beds.

Hospitals are on average 95 per cent occupied, well above the safe level of 85 per cent.

Pauline Philip, the NHS director for urgent and emergency care, said: ‘We know that the NHS is about to enter into the most challenging part of the year with spikes in demand likely after the Christmas and New Year breaks.

‘Hospitals will, as usual at this time of year, now be priorifrail tising the increased numbers of emergency patients over non-urgent planned services. There is still time for the public to play their part by ensuring they have their flu jab and by using local pharmacies and NHS 111 for medical advice, alongside other services.’

A& E units are normally extremely busy just after Christmas and New Year.

Many hospitals are also very full during this time as they have been unable to discharge elderly patients because social services and care homes are closed.

÷Almost 900,000 ambulance calls were dealt with by crews that did not have a paramedic last year, figures show.

Most were attended by technicians and emergency care assistants (ECAs) who wear the same uniform as paramedics but have significantly less training. Police were dispatched to at least 1,114 ambulance calls as medics were too busy.

The GMB union, which represents ambulance workers and obtained the figures, said patients were being given ‘inadequate care’.

Services across England are severely short of paramedics. They dealt with 10 million calls in 2016/17 and this is increasing by 5 per cent year-on-year.

Managers increasingly rely on technicians and care assistants. Technicians typically do a year to 18 months of training and supervision, while many ECAs have just 12 weeks. A paramedic takes four years to qualify.

‘Scale of the challenge’