NHS drive to ensure non-covid sick get help
Campaign will assure patients they won’t be treated as a burden, as appointments slump
THE NHS is encouraging people to visit hospitals and GP surgeries during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic after thousands were turned away during lockdown.
A campaign – Help Us to Help You – is being launched to tell patients they will not be viewed as a “burden” if they seek help for non-covid ailments this winter.
It comes amid fears that the “Protect the NHS” mantra – with people urged not to visit hospitals or GPS for fear of spreading the virus – led to thousands of patients being unable or unwilling to seek help during the first wave.
More than 111,000 patients in need of routine treatment for conditions such as cataracts and hip and knee operations have now waited more than a year, new figures have shown.
Despite an order to restore all nonCovid services at the end of June, NHS hospitals completed 43 per cent fewer routine appointments in August compared with the same month last year.
Launching the drive – aimed in particular at patients worried about cancer symptoms – Dr Nikki Kanani, England’s primary care medical director, said: “Whether you or a loved-one has a routine appointment, or a potential cancer symptom, our message is clear – you are not a burden, we are here to safely care so please don’t delay.
“Help us to help you and come forward as you usually would.”
Despite the appeal, Matt Hancock yesterday said the pandemic was at a “perilous” moment that could cause the “implosion” of the NHS this winter unless levels were suppressed. The Health Secretary said: “We know from bitter experience that the more coronavirus spreads, the harder it is to do all the other vital work of the NHS.
“The message to the public must be that we all have a part to play to control this virus.”
Declining to reference the NHS England campaign, he said that failing to suppress a second wave could overwhelm the NHS this winter. However, in a nod to the indirect risks of the virus, he added: “Our strategy is simple: suppress the virus, support the economy, education and the NHS until a vaccine can make us safe.”
It came as leaked internal projections for Greater Manchester forecast hospital admissions would hit levels seen in April in three weeks’ time if current trends continue. Nadine Dorries, the health minister, said admissions could reach a “critical stage” within 10 days.
The new NHS initiative launches the day after official data cast further light on the damage caused to cancer services, and revealed that efforts to work through the backlog of breast cancer patients went backwards last month, with urgent cancer referrals by GPS in August down 15 per cent on last year.
Yesterday, another 17,540 Covid-19 cases were announced, with 77 deaths.
It emerged yesterday that efforts to suppress the second wave have been hampered by the worst weekly performance yet by NHS Test and Trace.
Some 68.6 per cent of close contacts of those who tested positive in England were reached in the week ending Sept 30, the lowest weekly percentage since Test and Trace began. Just 25.7 per cent of people tested in England at a regional or local site or mobile testing unit received their results within 24 hours.
MORE than 111,000 people have now been waiting for routine NHS treatments for over a year, figures show, as regular hospital procedures fall by 43 per cent.
Rising sharply between July and August, the tally of those waiting more than a year for procedures such as cataracts and hip and knee surgery has exceeded 100,000 for the first time since records began.
The new data prompted calls for NHS officials “to be honest with patients and the public” about the true state of services six months on from lockdown. One leading think tank said the recovery of the health service since it was drastically regeared to cope with the coronavirus pandemic had “hit a wall”.
Routine treatments in August, the
latest month for which there were figures, were down 43 per cent compared with the same month in 2019, meaning only 155,789 patients were admitted.
In addition, latest A&E figures show there were 20 per cent fewer attendances – 1.7 million – in September compared with 12 months previously, and 9 per cent emergency admissions to hospital – a total of 479,800.
The data also showed that 169,660 urgent cancer referrals were made by GPS in England in August 2020, down from 200,317 in August 2019, a drop of 15 per cent. This compares with a yearon-year fall of 19 per cent in July, 21 per cent in June and 47 per cent in May. Urgent breast cancer referrals fell from 13,220 i n August 2019 to 9,498 in August 2020, down 28 per cent.
The 43 per cent decrease in routine treatments is a slight improvement on July, when the year-on-year drop in activity was 55 per cent.
Macmillan Cancer Support said the data showed there were “still thousands fewer people being tested or treated for cancer than the same time last year, meaning that the backlog of patients continues to grow”.
Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, wrote to hospitals on April 29 instructing them to restore urgent non-covid services as soon as possible, and again on July 31 to order the restoration of all non-covid services.
In March the number of patients who had waited more than 52 weeks for their treatment to be completed stood at 3,097. By June this had soared to 50,536.
Despite the order to restart all services, the tally rose to 83,203 in July and then to 111,026 in August.
This is the highest since modern records began more than a decade ago.
Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at The King’s Fund, an independent think tank for health systems, said: “NHS staff are working hard to restore services and find innovative new ways to care for patients, but as these figures show, there is a mountain to climb. It now seems unlikely that the highly ambitious targets for autumn will be met, and it is important to be honest with patients and the public.
“Covid-19 hospital admissions are rising in some parts of the country, thousands of people need support for long-lasting Covid symptoms, and over four million people are stuck on waiting lists after some treatments were delayed during the first wave of the virus.”
John Appleby, the Nuffield Trust’s chief economist, said: “Despite an ambitious drive to get back to seeing t he close to t he usual number of patients, today’s figures appear to show the NHS recovery hitting a wall.”
An NHS spokesman, said: “Hospitals are carrying out more than a million routine appointments and operations per week, with around three times the levels of elective patients admitted to hospital than in April, as they continue to make progress on getting services back to pre- Covid levels, including scanning services, which are delivering millions of urgent checks and tests.
“It is obviously vital for patients that this progress continues, and isn’t jeopardised by a second wave of Covid infections spiralling out of control.”