Can Coffey’s medicine cure real ills facing healthcare?
The health Secretary has quickly homed in on the health and social care issues infuriating patients and delivered a welcome plan for tackling them. But Therese Coffey’s blueprint – named Our Patient Plan – risks being written off as a ‘wish list’ as critics warn there are too few doctors, nurses and carers to deliver its aims.
MPs, charities, trade bodies and health think-tanks have shot down the document, saying it fails to do enough to address chronic staff shortages.
The scale of the problem is huge: the NhS is short of more than 100,000 staff, with one in ten nursing posts vacant, and adult social care needs a further 165,000 workers. Many in the sector believe the £500million social care ‘downpayment’ announced yesterday is unlikely to be enough to make a significant difference.
here we look at the patient priorities Miss Coffey has identified – or ABCD as she calls them – and why a shortage of NhS employees may make her plan difficult to achieve.
A – Ambulances
Heart attack and stroke patients face hour-long waits for an ambulance as crews are stuck outside A&E unable to offload patients and respond to new calls. Hospitals need to discharge medically-fit patients so there are beds for new cases – but a shortage of carers means there is nowhere for these frail people to go.
Carers can often earn more working in retail and trade bodies say the plan does not provide funding to offer all workers the pay rises needed to retain or attract enough staff.
B – Backlogs
Hospital waiting lists are at a record high of 6.8million and ministers accept this number is likely to rise before it falls. A shortage of doctors, nurses and available hospital beds limit the rate at which patients can be admitted.
The British Medical Association says pension changes do not go far enough to stop more doctors reducing hours or retiring early. And the Royal College of Nursing is balloting its members over industrial action in a dispute over pay.
C – Care
Liz Truss wants to scrap the Health and Social Care Levy funded through the national insurance rise and has pledged to put £13billion into social care through other means – but is yet to provide details. Meanwhile care providers are grappling with soaring food and energy bills and say they are too short of money to fund pay rises for staff themselves.
Ministers must provide more funding to be able to offer staff competitive salaries that means fewer are attracted by jobs in other sectors, they say.
D – Doctors and Dentists
There are fewer fully-qualified, full-time equivalent GPs now than in 2015 but the population is ageing and living with more complex conditions.
The Royal College of GPs says this means it is unrealistic to expect doctors to be able to see every patient who wants an appointment as quickly as they would like. Nine in ten NHS dental practices have closed their books to new adult patients, with the British Dental Association blaming a lack of government funding for dentists turning to private work.