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Found 799 results
  1. News Article
    NHS waiting lists are unlikely to fall in 2023, and the backlog is unlikely to be significantly tackled until mid-2024 despite being one of Rishi Sunak’s priorities for this year, research suggests. The NHS has struggled to increase the number of people it is treating from its waiting lists each month due to ongoing pressures from Covid-19, although there have been signs of improvement in the past month, analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found. Max Warner, an IFS economist and one of the report’s authors, said that although the NHS had made “real progress” to reduce the number of patients waiting a very long time for care, efforts to increase overall treatment volumes had “so far been considerably less successful”. The NHS Providers’ chief executive, Julian Hartley, urged the government to introduce a fully funded workforce plan and to talk to unions about pay for this financial year as strikes were causing huge disruption to services, and risked undoing hard-won progress made on care backlogs. “Mounting pressures on acute, ambulance, mental health and community services, such as chronic workforce shortages, could hamper efforts to cut the backlog further if left unchecked,” he said. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 8 February 2023
  2. News Article
    A record number of eating disorder patients are not getting the life-saving treatment they need due to lengthy waits, leaked NHS data shows. More than 8,000 adults are waiting to be seen for therapy, according to internal figures from NHS England – the highest figure recorded since data collection began in 2019. In March 2021, there were around 6,000 adults waiting, while it was less than 2,000 in March 2019. One leading doctor warned that delays were leading to avoidable deaths, while multiple coroners investigating the deaths of nine patients since 2021 have repeatedly called on the NHS and ministers to improve services to prevent more. An investigation by The Independent can also reveal that long waits have led to a woman, 24, taking her own life while waiting two years for appropriate care, and patients being admitted to hospital because their conditions became so severe they developed life-threatening physical conditions. Dr Agnes Ayton, the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ lead for adult eating disorders, said long waits meant patients were “dying avoidably” because under-resourced services were forced to turn them away or leave them waiting for years. Anorexia has the highest morality rate of any psychiatric disorder. “One important thing is eating disorders are treatable, people can get better with time and treatment. We shouldn’t accept anorexia has the highest mortality rate because a lot of these deaths are avoidable and treatable. We should be aiming to provide high-quality care,” she said. Read full story Source: The Independent, 6 February 2023 Further reading on the hub: People with eating disorders should not face stigma in the health system and barriers to accessing support in 2022 Eating disorders: challenges of the pandemic
  3. News Article
    Commissioners have begun a ‘serious incident review’ across their integrated care system after early indications showed patients may have suffered harm due to long waits for cancer treatment. The review has been launched by Somerset Integrated Care Board into dermatology services after an initial review found five of 50 patients had seen their skin lesions increase in size since being referred to hospital by their GPs. ICB board papers stated “potential patient harm has been identified” for those patients, who were on the two-week wait pathway to be seen by a specialist following a referral by their GP. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 3 February 2023
  4. News Article
    NHS England has effectively admitted the backlog of cancer long-waiters will still be higher in March 2024 than before covid hit, in a document seen by HSJ. The consultation document, detailing trajectories for reducing numbers waiting 62 days or more from referral, shows the expected national total in March 2024 is 18,755. NHS England previously committed to reducing this to pre-pandemic levels (14,226) by March 2022, then delayed the target until March this year. There are now significant backlogs in diagnostics, with particular challenges in endoscopy and breast screening. NHS Providers director of policy and strategy Miriam Deakin said: “Cancer is a key priority for trusts. They understand the risk to patients who have to wait. “The pandemic left people waiting longer than NHS trusts wanted for diagnosis or to start treatment, with some people not coming forward, but now urgent referrals for suspected cancer are far higher than pre-pandemic. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 February 2023
  5. News Article
    The amount of time people over 80 spend in A&E in England has almost doubled in a year, leaving them at increased risk of coming to harm and dying, emergency care doctors are warning. An analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) found that people of that age are spending 16 hours in A&E waiting for care or a bed, a huge rise on the nine hours seen in 2021. The college, which represents the UK’s A&E doctors, warned that long waits, allied to overcrowding in hospitals and older people’s often fragile health, is putting them in danger. Doctors specialising in emergency and elderly care warned that older people forced to spend a long time in A&E are more likely to suffer a fall, develop sepsis, get bed ulcers or become confused. Dr Adrian Boyle, the RCEM’s president, said that it is also likely that some older people are dying as a result of the delays they are facing, combined with their often poor underlying health. The risks older people face while waiting in sometimes chaotic A&E units are so great that they are likely to be disproportionately represented among the 500 people a week who the RCEM estimates are dying as a direct result of delays in accessing urgent medical help. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 31 January 2023
  6. News Article
    “I was worried it would grow and spread,” Charlotte Park, a breast cancer patient tells The Independent. “What happens if I hadn’t been that really pushy person? Sometimes I still go into a dark place and I think: I am so lucky to be here.” The 50-year-old, from Richmond in Yorkshire, found a lump in her breast in June 2020 and went straight to see her GP who informed her she would have to wait two weeks to see a specialist. After a fortnight of waiting, she started to panic and rang the clinic who said they were still working through referrals from four to six weeks prior to her referral. “I was getting frustrated and impatient by this point,” Ms Park recalls. “There was no leeway and they didn’t see if they could squeeze me in. I just felt frustrated. There was nothing I could do. It was all out of my hands. I was feeling teary.” Ms Park is one of thousands of women with breast cancer in England facing delays of weeks or months to see a specialist or receive treatment. Data, shared exclusively with The Independent, shows delays were substantially worse for those with breast cancer than other forms of cancer. In the end, Ms Park was forced to wait 25 days to see a specialist. The wait was “agony”, she said. It was difficult to definitively determine if the delays caused her cancer to grow, she noted. Her comments come in the context of thousands of women with breast cancer being forced to wait longer than the NHS-recommended time of two months to get treatment, in a situation branded “perilous” by healthcare professionals. Exclusive data shows only seven in ten women in England received treatment for breast cancer two months after getting an urgent doctor’s referral between January and November 2022. This amounts to just more than 16,500 women and is way below the NHS target for 85% of breast cancer patients diagnosed via an urgent GP referral to start their cancer treatment within two months of their GP visit. Read full story Source: The Independent. 31 January 2023
  7. News Article
    The NHS will start publishing “hidden” figures on A&E waiting times following several leaks reported by The Independent. After unveiling its emergency care plan on Monday, NHS England confirmed it would release internal data each month - currently only made public once a year - showing how many people are waiting for longer than 12 hours after arriving at an emergency department. The Independent has published several leaks of this data, which shows that these waiting times can be up to five times higher than publicly available NHS figures. Official monthly figures only count the number of hours patients wait after a decision to admit them has been made, and so mask the true scale of the problem. The move comes after health secretary Steve Barclay said the NHS would, from April, publish this “real” number in a bid for “greater transparency.” Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “Too much of the debate about A&E and ambulance services is based on anecdotal evidence. I want NHS managers and the wider public to have access to the same facts from the front line, starting with publishing the number of 12-hour waits from the time of arrival in A&E from April.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 31 January 2023
  8. News Article
    The Covid-19 pandemic cannot continue being blamed for poor cancer care, a charity boss has said. Judi Rhys, of Tenovus Cancer Care, said urgent action was needed to save lives when more people than ever are living with cancer in Wales. It comes as the Wales Cancer Network publishes a three-year plan to improve cancer outcomes and patient experience. But the group's clinical director warned the immediate priority would be maintaining current services. Prof Tom Crosby, clinical director for Wales Cancer Network, which was tasked by Wales' health minister to draw up the improvement plan, said the biggest pinch point at the moment was access to diagnostics. "We're absolutely trying to shorten overall times for patients coming into the system being diagnosed and then being treated," he said. On average in November, people suspected of having cancer had to wait 17 days for a first appointment and 23 days for a first test. It was an average 31 days from point of suspicion to being told if they had cancer or not and an average 24 days from point of diagnosis to treatment starting. "We hope that this year we will develop the first regional diagnostic centre and that is likely to be in south-east Wales," Prof Crosby said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 January 2023
  9. News Article
    Trusts are getting better at coping with industrial action and are still on track to hit the national target of eliminating the backlog of 78-week waiters, an NHS England director has told staff. Paul Doyle, NHS England’s programme director for elective recovery, said: “We continue to make really good progress [on elective recovery]… we are very much in the end game now of meeting the 78-week ambition for the end of March.” There have been concerns about the impact of recent strike action on eliminating the 78-week backlog, but Mr Doyle praised managers’ handling of the strikes and said administrative staff were doing an “incredible job”. He added: “Most organisations affected have got better and better as time has gone on about making sure that there are as few cancellations as possible and that cancellations are rebooked quickly or that clinical time is put to good use such as doing virtual outpatient appointments or doing validation of waiting list.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 30 January 2023
  10. News Article
    Record numbers of patients suffered severe harm last month because they spent so long in the back of ambulances waiting to get into A&E, new NHS figures reveal. An estimated 57,000 people in England “experienced potential harm”, of whom 6,000 were exposed to “severe harm”, in December – both the largest numbers on record – because they had to wait at least an hour to be handed over to hospital staff, according to NHS ambulance service bosses. The health union Unison, which represents many ambulance staff, said the data showed that the ambulance service “is barely coping” with the huge number of calls it is receiving. A senior ambulance service official said the high volume of patients being put at risk because they had to wait outside A&E so long before receiving medical attention, and paramedics being prevented from answering other 999 calls, was “horrific” and “astronomical”. He added: “These figures also show that whatever NHS England say they are doing to try to resolve this huge problem, it clearly isn’t working.” Martin Flaherty, Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) managing director, said: “Our December 2022 data for handover delays at hospital emergency departments shows some of the worst figures we have recorded to date and clearly underlines that not enough is being done to reduce and eradicate these dangerous, unsafe and harmful occurrences.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 January 2023
  11. News Article
    "I got my cervical screening letter in November and I've been putting it off because I don't want to do it - I don't think any girl really wants it done to them." Elena Coley Perez is 26 and due to have her first cervical screening - or smear test - that examines the opening to your womb from your vagina. NHS records show 4.6 million women - or 30% of those who are eligible - have never been screened for cervical cancer or are not up to date with their tests. Women are sometimes too embarrassed to come forward or put it off because they are anxious, surveys have found. Struggling to book their tests due to GP backlogs will not help the situation, say charities. Elena has told the BBC she was already worried about having a smear test, and the difficulty she experienced in booking one put her off even more. "I got another letter in December so I went to book online because with my local GP you have to go through this long-winded form," she said. "I typed in cervical screening and nothing was coming up, so I ended up waiting 35 minutes on the phone to be told they had no appointments for the rest of the year and to phone back in the new year." Elena then tried again in January and was told there was no availability. "At this point I was like, 'what's the point?' - you're trying to do something that can hopefully prevent you from getting cancer and you get to the doctor's surgery and you just get a 'no' - it's really off-putting," she says. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 January 2023 Further resources on the hub: For patients: Having a smear test. What is it about? (Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust) Cervical cancer symptoms (Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust) For staff: RCN guidance: Human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical screening and cervical cancer
  12. News Article
    The waiting list for endoscopies has broken the record set during the height of the covid pandemic, as referrals for suspected colorectal cancer surged, HSJ analysis shows. In November 2022, 110,00 people were waiting for a colonoscopy (or flexible sigmoidoscopy) and the median wait was 4.2 weeks, double the median wait in November 2019. The pandemic peak waiting list for these tests was 107,000 in September 2020. Nearly a quarter of those waiting as of November 2022, the most recent figures, were on the list for more than 13 weeks. In November 2019 only 2.9 per cent of the list waited this long. Health policy manager Matt Sample said: “As with all diagnostic services, endoscopies were hit hard by the pandemic, but the service was under considerable strain even before this as staff numbers and equipment simply weren’t rising to match demand. “The latest data shows that more than two in 10 people who started treatment for bowel cancer in England waited more than 104 days since their urgent referral – this is unacceptable. “Without continued efforts to expand diagnostic capacity, and in particular investment in addressing chronic workforce shortages, people affected by cancer will not receive the care they deserve.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 January 2023
  13. News Article
    Cathy Rice had been in all-consuming pain for 18 months when she decided to fly to Lithuania. “I was going up the stairs on my hands and knees. I couldn’t get to the shop. I had no quality of life,” she says. Rice, 68, who has four grandchildren, had been told she needed a knee replacement for an injury caused by osteoarthritis but – like millions of NHS patients – faced a gruelling wait. At a clinic in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second largest city, the operation was arranged within weeks and cost €6,800 (£5,967) – around half the cost in the UK. The price included a pre-travel consultation, return flights, airport transfers, two nights in an en suite hospital room, pre-surgery check-ups and post operative physio. “I thought, ‘Just look at your choices. You can stay here and be in this kind of pain for another couple of years or you can take a decision’,” Rice says. The former health sector worker, from Glasgow, is one of a growing number of Britons going abroad for routine medical care. She had never gone private before and never had a desire to. But last week, a year after the first surgery, she returned to Lithuania to have the same procedure on her other knee. This time, she says the wait she faced on the NHS was three years. She explains tearfully that to cover the costs of the surgeries in Lithuania, she sold her house. “People think that if you’re doing this you’ve got a wonderful pension or you’re very well off. But the driver here is that people are in pain,” she says. “This is not medical tourism; it’s medical desperation.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 21 January 2023
  14. News Article
    A record 350,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital from A&E last year, according to figures that raise fears about unsafe care as the NHS faces further waves of strike action. The figures, uncovered in an analysis by the Liberal Democrats, show a steep rise in delays since 2015, when just 1,306 patients waited 12 hours. Senior doctors described the situation as “unbearable” for patients and staff, ahead of a strike in which thousands of ambulance workers will walk out across England and Wales on Monday. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, warned that frequent and lengthy delays in emergency medicine are “needlessly costing lives of patients” and said that the government is in “total denial” about the scale of the problem facing hospitals, social care and GP services. “The failure of the Conservative government to grip this crisis is simply unforgivable,” he said. “Instead they have shamefully allowed the situation to go from bad to worse through years of neglect and failure.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 23 January 2023
  15. News Article
    A growing number of patients deemed to require a hospital admission are waiting so long in A&E that they end up being discharged before being admitted to a ward, HSJ has been told. A senior emergency clinician, who has delivered improvement support to multiple emergency departments across the NHS, said such cases have become a regular occurrence – describing it as a “terrible experience” for some patients. The clinician, who asked not to be named, said: “I suspect every ED in the country are having patients who are spending 24 to 48 hours in ED under the care of a specialist, that in a better time they would have gone onto a ward. That’s happening every day in every department. “If you have been seen by the ED crew and referred to the medics who say ‘you need to be admitted to hospital’, the chances are that they are sick enough that they really do need that bed. “It’s a terrible experience [for the patients]. EDs are busy, noisy and crowded. This is not the place where, if you were feeling ill, to get better in a calm, relaxing area. This idea that somehow it’s OK because these people are not that sick, it’s pretty poor. “It feels very much like battlefield medicine – slap a patch on and try and get them back into battle as quickly as possible. It shouldn’t be the way with civilian healthcare.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 January 2023
  16. News Article
    Thousands of NHS operations and appointments have had to be cancelled because of the nurses' strikes in England this week. Over the two days, NHS England said 27,800 bookings had to be rescheduled, including 5,000 operations and treatments. There were more than 30 hospital trusts affected with some saying between 10% to 20% of normal activity was lost. They warned the dispute was hampering progress in reducing the backlog. Saffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, which represents hospital bosses, said the strike days caused "significant disruption" and were "some of the hardest" hospitals have had to cope with this winter. She said it would have a "big knock-on effect on efforts to tackle the backlog". "The ramifications go well beyond the day itself. We are deeply concerned by this pile-up of demand, which will only continue with more strikes on the horizon." Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 January 2023
  17. News Article
    A record number of patients suffered “severe harm” as a result of ambulance delays in December, soaring by nearly 50 per cent in just one month as the NHS crisis deepened. Almost 6,000 suffered permanent or long-term harm due to long waits to hand over patients outside A&Es – up from just over 4,000 in November. A further 14,000 patients were likely to have suffered “moderate harm”, an analysis by The Independent of NHS ambulance data and estimates of harm by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) found. This includes incidents that resulted in patients needing further treatment or procedures, the cancelling of treatment, or being transferred to another area. Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said the figures are a “worrying reminder of the huge pressure the NHS is under”. She said: “Trust leaders are doing everything they can to provide patients with safe, high-quality care but they know patients face lengthy handover delays far too often, contributing to avoidable harm.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 20 January 2023
  18. News Article
    Ask any MP or local Healthwatch what health issue sits at the top of their inbox, and there is a good chance it will be the public’s access to NHS dentists. The launch of a Health and Social Care Committee inquiry into dentistry is therefore welcome news. The inquiry is well timed, coming after a recent BBC investigation showing that 90% of practices across England were not accepting new adult NHS patients. The severe access problems stem from several factors. Longstanding issues relating to the dental contract not offering high enough rates for dentists to provide NHS care, for example, have contributed to a decline in the availability of NHS dentistry. This has led to thousands of people across the country going private or, very concerningly, turning to self-care. Accident and emergency departments are over-flowing with people in severe dental distress, with tooth decay being the most common reason for hospital admission among children aged five to nine in recent years. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 January 2023
  19. News Article
    Pressures on emergency health services are so bad that the UK government should declare a “national emergency” and call a meeting of the Civil Contingencies Committee (COBRA)—the body summoned periodically to deal with matters of major disruption—peers have said. The cross party House of Lords Public Services Committee said in a report that the government needed to respond with an emergency approach and steps to remedy the situation in the longer term. A recurring theme of the report is the substantial delays highlighted by the media in recent months, which peers said were caused by a “broken” model of primary and community care. This was driving unmet need in directing patients to hospitals where many remained longer than clinically necessary because of inadequate social care. The report recommended that the Department of Health and Social Care should mandate a greater presence of clinical staff in NHS 111 control centres to help boost numbers of clinicians in the 999 and 111 services. This would mean that patients were directed to the right services more quickly thanks to better triaging of calls, which could mean fewer patients being passed to emergency or urgent care services. Another suggestion was for the government to introduce more incentives for faster safe discharges from hospitals, with more capacity in hospitals and social care to help people move through the health system more quickly. Read full story Source: BMJ, 19 January 2023 Further reading on the hub: Patient safety impact of hospital bed shortages – A Patient Safety Learning blog
  20. News Article
    Young people in the midst of a mental health crisis need to have attempted suicide several times before they get a bed in an inpatient unit in England, a report has revealed. Admission criteria for beds in child and adolescent mental health units are now so tight that even very vulnerable under-18s who pose a clear risk to themselves cannot get one. The practice – caused by the NHS’s lack of mental health beds – leaves young people at risk of further harm, their parents confused, exhausted and worried, and the police and ambulance services potentially having to step in. The high thresholds for admission to a child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) unit are detailed in a report on NHS mental health care for under-18s in England based on interviews with patients, their parents and specialist staff who look after them. The report says a young person has to “have attempted suicide multiple times to be offered inpatient support”. Olly Parker, the head of external affairs at the charity Young Minds, said: “It is shameful that children and young people are reaching crisis point before they get any support for their mental health. We know from our own research that thousands have waited so long for mental health support or treatment that they have attempted to take their own life. “Those who end up in A&E are often there because they don’t know where else to turn. But A&E can be a crowded and stressful environment, and is usually not the best place to get appropriate help.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 18 January 2023
  21. News Article
    A man has waited eight years to get adequate mental health care, as waiting lists for therapy grow. Myles Cook, 47, from Essex, lives with severe depression and has been fighting to get one-to-one counselling for eight years but he has been told there are not enough therapists locally to respond to the demand. Instead, he has been referred to group sessions, which he said were “detrimental” to his condition and manages his condition with medication but said he did not find that helpful either. He said: “If you’re not getting help, and all you keep getting are pills and pills that don’t seem to be doing much. It might take the edge off but it doesn’t really do anything for my depression and because of the way the benefits system works, I’m not getting any therapy If I’m not on tablets, they’ll probably kick me off on my benefits because I’m not being treated.” “I take the tablets, the psychiatric medications, I keep taking them although they’re not helpful because I need to have something to prove that I’m being treated to keep my benefits.” At least 95% of patients needing NHS talking therapy services, called IAPT, should receive treatment within 18 weeks. But figures previously uncovered by The Independent showed that just one in five patients have their second IAPT appointment within three months. And the NHS has failed to meet its target of having 1.6 million patients seen by IAPT services last year. Data published last year shows this was missed by 400,0000 at the end of 2021-22. Read full story Source: The Independent, 16 January 2023
  22. News Article
    A group of transgender people have lost their legal case against NHS England over waiting times to get seen by a gender specialist. The two trans adults and two trans children had tried to get the wait times - more than four years in one of their cases - deemed illegal. But a High Court judge ruled on Monday the waiting times are lawful. The Good Law Project - which helped to bring the legal action - said it would seek permission to appeal. The four people brought the legal action against NHS England (NHSE) over the waiting time to get a first appointment with a gender dysphoria specialist. The claimants argued that NHS England was failing to meet a duty to ensure 92% of patients referred for non-urgent care start treatment within 18 weeks. They said the waiting times were discriminatory, arguing the delays faced by trans people were longer than for other types of NHS treatment. But the judge dismissed the claim on several grounds. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 January 2023
  23. News Article
    ADHD awareness hassoared among women in the UK in the past year, but waiting times and the dearth of clinical awareness are leaving people awaiting diagnosis in a perilous position, leading experts have warned. Dr Max Davie, a consultant paediatrician and co-founder of ADHD UK, said that people talking openly about their diagnoses – including a number of high-profile celebreties – had led to more people seeking referrals for the condition. However, while awareness is increasing many trusts and private providers have shut waiting lists because of demand. “I think it’s probably as big a year as we’ve ever had. We are seeing a lot more people from all walks of life seeking a diagnosis later in life, particularly women,” Dr Davie said. “At the same time waiting lists have gone through the roof. NHS services have been swamped for a while and private providers are also closing their lists – there are wildly inadequate services for ADHD diagnosis, particularly for adults.” Dr Tony Lloyd, the chief executive of the ADHD foundation, said its own figures suggested a 400% increase in the number of adults seeking a diagnosis since 2020, adding that prescription volumes did not take account of those who do not use medication. “ADHD remains significantly under-diagnosed and under-treated in the UK – at great cost to public services and to the individual and the workforce,” he said. "Stigma around the condition, which the charity says affects one in 20 people in the UK, resulted in negative outcomes for individuals and high costs to the economy. Dismissing ADHD as a cultural construct and undeserving drain on finite NHS resources only adds to the enduring stigma and stereotyping of those with ADHD,” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 January 2023
  24. News Article
    Eight trusts have been awarded roles trialling a new accreditation scheme for surgical hubs as part of an NHS England pilot that will run until March. The creation of up to 140 surgical hubs, sites which are ring-fenced for surgical work only, is a key plank of the NHS England and government elective recovery plan for addressing the backlog. The full benefits are still being finalised but accredited trusts will likely get better access to additional recovery funding and central support from the Getting It Right First Time team. The hubs will focus mainly on providing high volume, low complexity surgery, as previously recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, with particular emphasis on ophthalmology, general surgery, trauma and orthopaedics (including spinal surgery), gynaecology, ear nose and throat, and urology. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 12 January 2023
  25. News Article
    Some hospitals in Scotland have been told to postpone surgeries to ‘decongest’ the system as the crisis in the health service deepens. A group of NHS hospitals has stopped routine surgery for three weeks in an unprecedented step, as pressures mount on the health service. Health bosses at the NHS Ayrshire & Arran trust warned of “extremely high demand” across the system, as they also asked GPs to see only urgent cases. Rishi Sunak has repeatedly urged trusts to avoid cancelling elective surgery, urging hospitals not to repeat the errors made in the pandemic, which resulted in record backlogs. Clare Burden, the chief executive of NHS Ayrshire & Arran, said the cancellations were necessary "due to a combination of staff absence across the system, high bed occupancy levels in our acute and community hospitals, high levels of flu and Covid in our community, some delayed transfers of care, and high volumes of frail patients whose recovery includes complex care.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 11 January 2023
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