Cancellations and delays in winter
PATIENTS STUCK in ambulances outside hospitals, long delays in A&E and cancelled operations were the story of last winter for the NHS.
But doctors’ leaders have been warning that the health service faces a crisis all year round due to ongoing staff shortages and relentless pressure on emergency departments.
Last week Dr Chaand Nagpaul,
chair of council for the British Medical Association (BMA), said there was “little sign” that an announcement by Prime Minister Theresa May of a long-term NHS funding plan would solve the problems.
He was speaking after figures showed that bed occupancy rates were running at 100 per cent at some hospitals, well above the recommended 85 per cent safe level.
Dr Nagpaul told the BMA’s Annual Representative Meeting: “We know the NHS has been systematically and scandalously starved of resources for years. It lacks doctors, it lacks nurses, it lacks beds.
“Do you remember when winter pressures only happened in the winter? We now have an allyear crisis.”
The BMA also released results of a survey which showed that almost three quarters of doctors felt that financial targets were overriding patient care.
Eight in 10 said underfunding was affecting safety and 95 per cent said they were fearful of making medical errors due to workplace pressures. NHS trusts in England had a combined financial deficit of £960m at the end of the last financial year, £460m worse than planned.
An annual performance report showed the NHS provider sector had more than 92,000 staff vacancies.
To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS, Theresa May announced a £20bn-a-year funding increase, equivalent to 3.4 per cent annually. THE NATIONAL Health Service was set up based on healthcare being available to all, regardless of wealth.
When the NHS was launched in 1948 by Aneurin Bevan, the then Minister for Health, the system was based on three core principles.
They were that the NHS meets the needs of everyone, is free at the point of delivery and is based on clinical need, not people’s ability to pay.
The country’s healthcare system was previously a fragmented mix of private and public schemes, along with the charity sector.
It was the first time hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists were brought together in a single organisation to provide a universal service.
The NHS was to be financed entirely from taxation, meaning people paid into it according to their means.
In 2011 the Department of Health published the NHS Constitution, which sets out the guiding principles of the health service and patients’ rights. Dr Doug Martin, “WE HAVE been sleepwalking into a public services crisis. Now it’s time to wake up. Those in the corridors of power constantly tell us we live in a fair society. We are a caring nation that looks after all our citizens, and particularly the most vulnerable.
“For the most part, we believe their words. It makes us feel better as a nation. But then we experience the reality of visiting the GP or attending A&E: unfathomably long waits for both, followed by consultations with stressed-out, overworked and close-to-quitting medics.
“So what is the real story here? Are the cornerstones of the welfare state simply underfunded or is there more to it?
“Firstly there is, perhaps conveniently, a lack of understanding as to why the cornerstones of the welfare state are under such pressure.
“And secondly, the public continue to expect high-quality services, and for the more vulnerable in our society to receive comprehensive support.
“While many people volunteer and help in many ways to do great work, the ‘Big Society’ of 2010 never materialised to fill the void left as services disappeared.
“Early-intervention ‘buffer’ services have almost completely vanished across the board since 2010 as the state has shifted from engaging with key social issues to a minimalistic approach.
“These increased pressures on the NHS start very early on down the food chain:
The reality of life for many is a daily struggle involving the foodbank, temporary or poor accommodation and temporary low-paid work;
Core funding for local authorities has been reduced;
Local authorities report their role has shrunk to the statutory services only. For example, children and young people’s service in England have experienced a £1 billion reduction in real terms, leaving valued services such as young people’s services in tatters.
“These examples typify how the profile of services has shifted – from prevention to crisis management in a time of vastly reduced budgets.
“This silent revolution has seen the remaining 60 per cent of council funding focused upon heavily targeted crisis services, leaving GP surgeries and A&E a service wasteland. While this silent shift in service provision has gone seemly unnoticed by our leaders, the same people work to retain the illusion that Britain is fair society.
“The NHS, on its 70th birthday, is the victim of the pressure cooker. It has to stop.”