Urgent NHS help for children ‘is not accessible’ in crisis

ALMOST half of parents with under-18s do not feel confident they can access timely day-to-day medical care for their children in the face of the current NHS crisis, a poll suggests.

The survey of 1,028 users of the parenting website Mumsnet also found 40 per cent are not confident they could access emergency care for their children if they needed it. A third said they had been unable to get a GP appointment for their child in the previous three months.

Sixteen per cent took their child or children to A&E because they felt there was no other way of getting treatment.

Of those parents who did take their children to A&E, nearly half (49 per cent) waited more than four hours to be admitted, discharged or transferred.

Seventy per cent of parents said they had waited longer than five minutes when calling 111, and more than half (51 per cent) said they have experienced difficulty generally when trying to use the service for their children.

When asked who was responsible for the current crisis in the NHS, 86 per cent said the present government.