Surgeons’ skills going to waste as shortage of beds delays operations
SURGEONS ARE being left “kicking their heels” because of delays to operations caused by a shortage of beds, two health groups have warned.
The “shocking waste” of highly-skilled surgeons’ time is partly caused by a lack of social care to look after elderly patients in the community, they said.
Clare Marx, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, blamed cuts aimed at driving productivity for causing greater inefficiency in some areas.
The letter said: “Because of bed shortages, staff including surgeons are now sometimes left kicking their heels, waiting for beds to become available so they can operate.
“Too often managers, nurses and doctors waste time trying to find somewhere to look after patients.
“At a time when the NHS is being told to make the most of its resources, this is a shocking waste.” Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has already admitted that the performance in elements of the NHS was “completely unacceptable”.
Reacting to the health groups’ comments, an NHS England spokesman said: “The level of cancellations remains low at just one per cent of the millions of operations performed in the NHS each year.”
THE FIRST consultations are underway in Yorkshire over part of a radical shake-up of health services, which are being rolled out to plug a huge NHS funding black hole.
Early details of so-called Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) were revealed when they were published late last year by NHS trusts across the country.
Now NHS bosses are asking people for their views on the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw STP, which MPs and campaigners have warned risk pushing NHS back to the 1960s.
Smaller versions of STPs, known as ‘place plans’, have been issued to divide the plan for South Yorkshire into districts including Barnsley, Bassetlaw, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.
In South Yorkshire, the plan has been drawn up to address an estimated funding gap of £517m for the NHS over the next four years.
STPs, aimed at accelerating an NHS efficiency plan to improve healthcare while also curbing a massive overspend, have only been discussed at board-level by the NHS and its partners in the region up until now.
Sir Andrew Cash, lead for the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw STP, said: “This is an important opportunity for everyone in the region, from organisations, staff, patients and members of the public to come together to really make a difference and make sure that our services are continuously improving and meeting the needs of everyone living in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw.”
As part of the South Yorkshire STP, consultations are currently taking place on ending some children’s operations in Barnsley, Chesterfield and Rotherham, as well as on no longer providing hyper acute care for people who have had a stroke in Barnsley and Rotherham hospitals.
Health services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate face a £1bn funding gap, while in North Yorkshire fears have been raised that the potential downgrading of some services at Darlington Memorial Hospital could see patients in some of Yorkshire’s most rural communities facing the prospect of travelling around 60 miles to Middlesbrough for critical care.
Bassetlaw MP John Mann warned Parliament that the STP plan for South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw was a “smokescreen for cuts”.
He said that up to February, “not a single person in Bassetlaw” including NHS trust staff, had been consulted on their region’s plans, despite STPs being published last year.
It comes after the lawyer who chaired the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire scandal said current conditions in the NHS are “familiar” to those found during investigation at the trust.
Barrister Sir Robert Francis QC, whose 2013 report uncovered poor care in Mid Staffordshire, said on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr show on Sunday that the pressures the health service was under were “pretty bad”.
See tomorrow’s edition of The Yorkshire Post for an exclusive report uncovering for the first time the sheer scale of coming change – and what is already underway across the county – following an in-depth analysis of radical transformation plans and local proposals for the county.
The planned changes to prevent a £22bn black hole nationwide by 2020 will see hospital A&E downgrades, unit closures and a massive re-organisation of healthcare provision across Yorkshire.
The consultation is being held until the end of March for the public, and mid-April for staff.
Visit: www.smybndccgs.nhs. uk for details on the consultation.
This is an important opportunity for everyone in the region Sir Andrew Cash, lead for the NHS’ South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw STP.