A&E patients are dying in our corridors, doctors tell PM
‘State of emergency’
THE that leading patients NHS of doctors overcrowded winter are warned dying crisis A&E is in the so the serious Prime units, corridors Minister A total of yesterday. 68 doctors wrote to Theresa May to report ‘intolerable’ conditions in many casualty departments.
They said patients were being made to languish on trolleys or chairs for up to 12 hours while waiting for a bed. And they warned that some A&E units were treating up to 120 patients in corridors each day, either on trolleys or chairs, because of the shortage of beds.
The letter – signed by consultants from some of the country’s largest hospitals – went on to say that some patients were ‘dying prematurely.’
It described the NHS as being ‘severely and chronically underfunded’ and complained that planning for the winter crisis had ‘failed to deliver anywhere near what was needed’.
It represented the strongest warning yet of the tragic implications of the ongoing crisis and came on a day when the organisation representing hospital managers said the NHS was facing a ‘watershed moment’.
Official figures yesterday showed the performance of A&E units in December was the worst in 14 years. Only 85.1 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, well below the Government’s target of 95 per cent. This is equal to January 2017 and the worst since the NHS first started compiling records in 2004.
Figures for the week to January 7 showed that 16,690 patients waited for 30 minutes or more in ambulances outside A&E units. This included 5,082 patients who waited more than an hour. In some instances, patients were stuck in vehicles for five hours.
Although January is always extremely busy, this year has been particularly intense because of a surge in patients with flu and chest infections.
The consultants’ letter – which was passed on to the Health Service Journal yesterday – said the pressures were such that safety was being compromised.
‘Thousands of patients are waiting in ambulances for hours as the hospitals lack adequate space,’ they wrote. The letter said that in some casualty units, more than being with ‘some 120 ‘ managed’ patients dying prematurely’. in a corridors, day were In a separate intervention, Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: ‘ We have reached a watershed moment where either we fund the NHS to the extent that is needed to meet those standards or, and this is absolutely not what we want, we abandon those standards.
‘Rising numbers of flu cases and more respiratory illness have placed intolerable pressures on staff.’
In a letter to Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt, he urged the Government to invest £153 billion into the NHS