NHS IS NOW ‘RATIONING’ TREATMENT
Service ‘can no longer offer all things to everyone’ Difficult choices must be confronted, warns chief of BMA
THE NHS is facing tough choices over its future, with rationing of treatment already under way and some patients willing to pay for their care, a leading doctor has warned.
As queues mount in A&E departments because of massive bed blocking, senior medics have spoken out about the state of the NHS and its future.
Dr Iain Kennedy, chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said difficult decisions must be made in order to save the health service.
It comes after his Christmas message in which he said the NHS was ‘broken’ and cannot survive in its current form.
His colleague, deputy BMA chair Dr Lailah Peel, said she had worked festive shifts in A&E which had left her in tears because she felt so helpless about the number of patients waiting hours to be seen.
Yesterday Dr Kennedy said: ‘The BMA are fundamentally opposed to a two-tier service and believe healthcare in Scotland should be free at the point of delivery.
‘However, the health service can no longer offer everything to everybody.
‘Despite that, the Scottish Government is still advising chief executives of Scottish NHS boards that everything is a priority. No political direction is being given on what they should prioritise and that means alreadyscarce resources are spread too thinly.
‘The public and politicians need to decide what they want to prioritise, and they will need to make choices.’
Dr Kennedy said rationing of services is already taking place, with outpatient clinics
‘Ask the public what they want’
no longer accepting varicose vein patients, unless there are severe complications, and hospitals not seeing patients with benign, non-cancerous skin lesions.
He said: ‘The BMA is not calling for rationing but we are asking people and politicians to talk about current resources and what is currently provided.’
‘Politicians need to have the courage to ask the public, now, what they want. People get nervous about these conversations because nobody wants to be the first one to talk about cuts and about denying treatments.
‘However, the reality is that rationing is already happening. Access to some appointments and treatments is already being limited unless the condition is causing a patient serious problems.’
Dr Kennedy added that patients have contacted the BMA saying they would be willing to pay for treatments, for example paying £25 a month towards prescriptions for long-term conditions.
Dr Peel said that during shifts over the past few weeks, patients were waiting more than 16 hours in A&E, with ambulances stacked outside unable to offload new patients due to a lack of space.
Referring to one shift in the middle of December, she said: ‘The backlog of patients from the night shift took until the middle of the day to clear. A colleague tells me how they handed over a patient to the night shift only to be handed them back in the morning, 12 hours later. This isn’t that unusual now but would have been considered a very rare and untoward event a couple of years ago, probably resulting in internal investigations. It’s another stark reminder of how things have changed.’ Dr Peel said that, exhausted after another shift and feeling helpless about the sheer number of patients waiting to be seen, she ‘went home and cried’. Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘Scotland’s overstretched NHS is on its knees thanks to years of dire workforce planning by a succession of SNP health secretaries.
‘Frontline staff have lost all faith in Humza Yousaf to turn things around, which is why he must be sacked as a matter of urgency.
‘He is part of the problem, not the solution.’
Dr Gulhane added: ‘Patients will naturally be concerned at the thought of treatments being rationed, or patients even being asked to pay. Nicola Sturgeon must reassure them this will not happen. Her first step to doing so should be removing her hapless health secretary.’
Mr Yousaf said: ‘We are closely monitoring the situation in emergency departments extremely closely and are in daily contact with health boards to ensure all possible actions to support services are being explored.’