Solution needs to be found over amount of GP referrals to A&E
FOR a long time now, we’ve been told that the problems being experienced by Accident and Emergency departments around the country would go away if only we used the service more responsibly.
Here in Rossendale, our local A&E, in Blackburn, has been one of the most under pressure in the country.
It receives more ambulance admissions than any other hospital in the North West – remarkable when you consider that includes cities like Manchester and Liverpool – and the four-hour waiting time target has, at times, been little more than a far-fetched dream.
As the BBC News coverage in January showed when cameras were allowed to see what life is like in A&E at Blackburn, a lack of funding, lack of space and shortage of staff has as much an impact on the hard-working doctors and nurses as it does on patients attending.
I’ve always suspected the ‘oh it’s just easy to go to A&E for treatment’ explanation was a little bit of a myth. Are there really that many people going to spend hours in an uncomfortable waiting room when other options could be available?
Evidence from Healthwatch Lancashire seems to suggest there is something in that thinking. It carried out a ‘patient engagement day’ at A&E in December and then in January to see what people thought of the service.
It was full of praise for staff and the way they organised the department, and says 97 per cent of patients were happy with the ‘service’ they got.
According to their report, 36pc of people attending had come to A&E after speaking to their GP. Fifteen pc attended after ringing 111 for advice. Seven pc said they were visiting after going to a walk-in health centre.
Just 25pc said they hadn’t spoken to anyone.
Evidence presented in the report talked about people ringing their GP and being told to ring 999 more quickly, being advised by GPs to go to A&E, being sent to A&E with a letter from a GP, and a doctor ringing an ambulance to pick up a patient.
I think it sums up that we have a wider problem in the NHS in East Lancashire – and it’s not just people turning up to A&E off their own bat because it’s easy.
It suggests that GPs are referring people to A&E in far greater numbers than the system can cope with. There are no quick solutions to that, but a solution does need to be found.
This isn’t something which has happened overnight, of course. But when you look at what has been done to our NHS locally in recent years, confusion reigns.
Rossendale had to battle to keep its minor injuries unit open a couple of years ago – where did the local NHS bosses expect people who went there to go instead?
It’s a number of years since Burnley lost it’s A&E department – isn’t it time people in power started asking what other services could be provided for GPs to refer urgent cases to without sending them to the A&E department?
One of the coalition government’s flagship reforms was to hand funding for the NHS to clinical commissioning groups locally, run by local GPs.
The idea was to make the NHS more relevant to local areas.
It would appear the question that needs to be asked is: “What needs to happen for GPs to refer fewer people to A&E?” With the funding at their fingertips, our GPs are surely best placed to solve this.