NHS 24’S CHILLING WINTER WARNING

Patients face wait of over three hours for help as health service unveils crisis plan

PATIENTS phoning NHS 24 this winter face waits of more than three hours.

Scotland’s out-of-hours medical hotline is warning some patients phoning with ‘less serious symptoms’ may have to wait beyond its threehour callback target if it does not have enough staff. It plans to rely on GPs to take some of its calls during peak time – but there is no guarantee they can be spared, say officials.

Patients may also be seen in pop-up ‘hot clinics’ set up at peak times to cut down on the number of people admitted to hospital. Details of how health boards plan to cope with winter pressures, including the closure of GP clinics at Christmas and New Year, have been set out in NHS 24’s Winter Plan.

Last year, hospitals and clinics buckled under the strain of illnesses and bad weather – and NHS chiefs are ‘determined’ to learn from the crisis this winter. As well as trying to reduce the

‘Reassurance that the NHS can cope’

number of people admitted to hospital, they want patients discharged as quickly as possible.

To bolster NHS 24, some health boards have been asked to get staff such as GPs to take some calls during peak times.

The Winter Plan states: ‘NHS 24 has been proactively engaging with boards to secure agreement regarding their capacity to take calls.

‘If the identified health boards are unable to take the calls, NHS 24 will continue to manage call demand and provide a safe service to our patients.

‘The specific impact will be on patients calling with lower acuity clinical presentations and the time to call back may extend at times beyond the three-hour callback target.’

But Scottish Labour health spokesman Monica Lennon warned: ‘If these plans involve turning patients away and long waits for NHS 24 advice, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman will have some explaining to do. Patient safety must come first and the Scottish Government must ensure the NHS has the right resources this winter.

‘With the shadow of last winter’s chaos hanging over the health service and winter deaths reaching a 20-year record high, the public need reassurance that the NHS will be able to cope this year.’

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘The public will be rightly concerned about how our health service will cope in the cold winter months. Our hard-working NHS staff are overworked and under-resourced.’

Last year, flu rates soared and hospitals postponed hundreds of operations and closed wards to limit the spread of the virus. Patients were told to stay away from A&E unless they were in need of urgent medical attention.

Since then, bed-blocking in Scotland’s hospitals has hit its worst levels in almost two years, with 1,529 people stuck in hospital, despite being medically fit to leave, when a census was taken in September. There is also a nationwide shortage of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers.

Meanwhile patients are being seen on assessment wards or clinics, instead of being admitted to hospital for tests, to reduce pressure on beds.

A scheme in NHS Tayside involves patients sent into hospital by GPs being dealt with in assessment areas, and those with conditions such as blood clots, headaches and less serious chest pain or breathlessness treated as out-patients instead of being admitted.

The board is also setting up ‘hot clinics’ before and after the public holidays where patients can be quickly assessed to prevent the need for them to be admitted to hospital for tests, including radiology scans for conditions such as jaundice.

An NHS Tayside spokesman said: ‘The hot clinics would run in the community pre and post public holidays to quickly see patients who become ill over the festive period and who require rapid assessment. This will help to prevent unnecessary admission to hospital for investigations.’

A similar scheme is under way in NHS Borders, which has set up a rehabilitation service to avoid patients remaining on wards. A spokesman said: ‘A new Hospital to Home service has been established for people who are clinically fit and ready to leave hospital but require support to develop their confidence and skills, so that they can carry out activities themselves to enable them to return home.’

In Ayrshire and Arran a Discharge to Assess scheme has been set up, so that patients are sent home or into care homes while they are assessed for social care, rather than remain on wards, in a move that could reduce bed-blocking.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: ‘Callbacks are triaged in order to prioritise serious and urgent cases. Non-urgent cases have a standard callback window of one, two and three hours. If additional demand on NHS 24 requires it, some patients at lower risk may see their callback time go beyond the three-hour target.’