Healthcare in crisis: Future of NHS on a knife-edge as Tories urged to act now
A top doctor is calling on No10 to save the NHS as it buckles under soaring demand and years of cuts.
Professor Phil Banfield said its future is on a knife edge but it is“within the Government’s gift to pull it back from the brink”.
Patients will continue to be at risk unless the Tories urgently tackle the crippling demand that has plunged the NHS into a deadly crisis, health chiefs warn.
Pressure is growing on No10 to call a nationwide critical incident, similar to the height of the pandemic when non-urgent cases were cancelled.
It comes as a highly infectious new Covid variant is spreading through the UK and flu cases are soaring.
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But medics warned Tory cuts have left the NHS on its knees, amid claims up to 500 people a week die because of delays in emergency care.
British Medical Association council chair Professor Phil Banfield said: “The situation in the NHS is intolerable and unsustainable.
"The future of the NHS is on a knife edge. It is solely within the Government’s gift to pull it back from the brink. Without intervention, waiting lists will continue to grow and patients will continue to suffer.”
Health Secretary Steve Barclay is under pressure to act (Thomas Krych/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)The Society for Acute Medicine led calls for a major incident to be declared. NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said: “When the NHS is under this pressure there are consequences in terms of risks for patients. After 10 years of austerity we went into Covid in a fragile state that meant it hit us harder than other health services.”
A number of hospitals have appealed to the public not to attend A&Es unless their illness or injury is life-threatening.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The NHS is buckling under pressures that staff have been warning about for months. Where is the Government?” The Royal College of Emergency Medicine hit back at attempts to “discredit” its claims patients are dying due to delays.
Vice-president Ian Higginson said: “We’ve been hearing problems are all due to Covid or flu.
“We have good evidence that long waits in A&Es are associated with poor outcomes.”
Labour's Wes Streeting asked: "Where is the government?" (PA)The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We recognise the pressures the NHS is facing following the impact of the pandemic and are working to ensure people get the care they need, backed by up to £14.1billion additional funding.”
A doctor says patients are dying while waiting two to three days in A&E because the NHS is “broken”.
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A report posted online, claiming to be from a registrar with a decade of experience on the NHS front line, told of “the first time ever that I cried in my car after a shift”.
The account added: “I was on nights over the New Years period, but New Year was not the issue, every shift is like this now.”
It said that five years ago there were typically 50 patients on handover at night, but now it is usually 180.
The report, posted by a fellow medic, claimed between 60% and 70% of patients were waiting 10 hours to be seen.
It added: “Last night 60% of the patients in the emergency department had been there for more than 12 hours, some for more than 40.”
It told of “87-year-olds coming in after falls sitting in chairs for 18 hours... Other elderly patients lying in their own urine for hours because there’s no staff, or even room to change them into something dry”. The account told of patients lying on the floor due to a lack of chairs.
NHS insiders warn the health service is buckling under the pressure (file image) (Getty Images)It said: “People are actually dying. People who’ve been in the emergency department for two to three days.”
Telling of overstretched staff, it said: “There’s fewer nurses every week, because why would you put yourself through this day after day?”
It added: “The NHS isn’t breaking, it’s broken. The NHS as we knew it is dead.
“The public have no idea, they don’t really know how dangerous this all is. It’s not a hospital problem, it’s a national problem, brought about by the politics of the people in power.”
The account, which the Mirror could not independently verify, was shared by a Twitter user called Becky who says she is an emergency medicine consultant.
She said: “Harrowing words from a senior emergency medicine doctor showing despair at not being able to provide the level of care every doctor hopes to for their patients.”
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