NHS patients will spend last years in pain, warns top doctor

Suffering is “the new norm” in the NHS and people can expect to spend their last few years in pain, the outgoing chairman of the British Medical Association said.

Chaand Nagpaul, who steps down this week, said the NHS was in a “perilous state”. He also wants people to have sympathy for the “plight” of junior doctors, who have said they will prepare for a ballot on strikes over pay.

There are 6.5 million people on NHS waiting lists, many of whom have been waiting a year or more. Nagpaul, who has been a GP for 33 years, said: “I have not come across this scale of suffering, of unmet need. And what we’re going to be seeing is people spending the last years of their lives, literally in pain, unable . . . to have a hip operation. That will be the final years of their lives.”

He said there was a “whole, larger population of patients just literally not featuring in the statistics” waiting for outpatient treatment, mental health care and diabetes checks.

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Source: The Times, 27 June 2022