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Found 800 results
  1. News Article
    The numbers of cancer patients facing delays in seeing a specialist for the first time and starting their treatment have hit record highs in England, amid fears that overstretched NHS services can no longer provide prompt care. The disclosure comes as a new row over how quickly hospitals can clear the record 6 million-strong NHS backlog has forced ministers to delay publication of the long-awaited plan to tackle it. Half a million people in England with suspected cancer will have to wait longer than the supposed two-week maximum to see an oncologist this year, an analysis for the House of Commons library reveals. The number of patients confirmed to have the disease who are unable to start treatment such as surgery or chemotherapy within the 31 or 62 days that hospitals try to guarantee is expected to exceed 75,000 for the first time. Experts, who claim significant shortages in the NHS cancer workforce are to blame, fear delays in getting diagnosed and starting care could reduce a patient’s chances of survival. Cancer charities highlighted the “unimaginable distress and anxiety” they induce in patients. “Cancer care is in crisis,” the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said. “As this new analysis shows, terrifyingly large numbers of people are waiting longer than they should to receive vital cancer care and treatment with the insecurity of not knowing.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 6 February 2022
  2. News Article
    Thousands of children are falling through the cracks in youth addiction services owing to Covid, staff shortages and funding cuts, psychiatrists have said, as figures suggest the number able to get help has fallen to the lowest on record. Analysis of data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) found that 11,013 under-18s were in treatment for drug and alcohol dependency in England in 2020-21, which was 3,278 fewer (23% less) than in 2019-20. It was the sharpest annual fall since records began, and means 13,481 fewer children were being treated than at a peak in 2008-09. The vast majority of children in treatment (89%, or 9,832) had a problem with cannabis and 41% (4,459) had a problem with alcohol. About 12% (1,333) were struggling with ecstasy use and 9% (976) reported a problem with powder cocaine. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which analysed the data, said the pandemic, together with “drastic” historical funding cuts, was preventing young people from accessing the drug and alcohol treatment they need, potentially condemning them to a life of addiction. Dr Emily Finch, the vice-chair of the addictions faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “Children and their families up and down the country are having their lives blighted by drug and alcohol use due to drastic cuts, workforce shortages and the impact of the pandemic. “Addiction is a treatable health condition. Intervening early will mean many kids won’t go on to have an addiction in their adulthood, keeping them out of the criminal justice system and helping them to live full lives. It’s now time for the government to act on their promise and deliver the multimillion-pound investment into drug services.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 February 2022
  3. News Article
    Long waits at accident and emergency (A&E) departments in Scotland continue to put patient safety at “serious risk”, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned. New figures from Public Health Scotland show 78 per cent of patients visiting A&E in the week to January 23 were seen and admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours. This is an increase on the previous week, but still below the Scottish Government target of 95% It comes as the number of planned operations across NHS Scotland dropped 13% from November to December, to 17,835. Dr John Thomson, vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland, said the college was concerned poor A&E performance times are becoming the “status quo”. “With fewer attendances performance has plateaued, but be in no doubt that the health service and its staff in Scotland remain under unprecedented pressure and increasing burnout,” he said. Dr Thomson added: “The impact of this continued poor performance is distress and moral injury to staff and serious discomfort and risk to the safety of patients. Read full story Source: The Scotsman, 2 February 2022
  4. News Article
    The four-hour standard for A&E waits is the ‘wrong target’, which ‘doesn’t work’ and leads to ‘perverse outcomes’, health and social care secretary Sajid Javid has said. Mr Javid made the claim during an appearance before the Commons health and social care committee yesterday. He also spoke about the requirement that NHS patient-facing staff must be vaccinated against covid and took the opportunity to restate his belief that radical action was needed to tackle “failing trusts”. Mr Javid told the MPs: “Targets work if they are the right targets, and in the NHS I have already noticed there are targets which are the wrong targets and we’ve got to change them. “The four-hour A&E target is the wrong target, it doesn’t work. It leads to really perverse outcomes. “If you look at some NHS trusts, all of sudden when the individual in A&E has got to three hours and 55 minutes, guess what? They just admit it. That’s a poor outcome. “There may have been a good reason to have that target in the past, but you’ve got to keep these targets constantly under review and that’s something I’m doing.” The long-running clinical review of waiting time standards by NHS England had proposed replacing the four-hour target with a suite of other measures but the government has yet to formally respond. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 26 January 2022
  5. News Article
    Hundreds of thousands of dental patients in England are to be offered weekend and evening appointments under NHS plans to tackle the backlog exacerbated by the pandemic. More than 350,000 extra dental appointments are to be made available in February and March, NHS England said, with a new £50m funding pot aimed at fuelling a dentistry “treatment blitz”. However, senior dentistry sources said the cash was a “drop in the ocean”, with tens of millions of NHS appointments cancelled as a result of Covid-19 and the resulting backlog set to take years to clear. Some also expressed doubts about whether there would be enough staff to offer the additional appointments, since hundreds of dentists have quit the profession in the last year amid warnings that NHS dentistry is increasingly “hanging by a thread”. Millions of patients have struggled to access dental care since 2019. Some have spent weeks or months in pain as a result, and others believed they had no option but to conduct “DIY dentistry” while waiting for treatment, or felt coerced into “going private”. Under the new plans to tackle the backlog, NHS England said dentists involved in the scheme would “be paid more than a third on top of their normal sessional fee” for delivering care outside their core hours. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 January 2022
  6. News Article
    The significantly longer waiting times suffered by patients from minority ethnic groups and in more deprived areas for a range of elective procedures have been laid bare in NHS analysis shared with HSJ. The problem of waiting time disparities between different patient groups has been highlighted by health leaders for several years. But the NHS chief who oversaw this new work quantifies the issue for a local NHS trust, provides a template for others to follow, and has led to an improvement in waiting times disparities in response. The analysis of elective waiting lists by Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust found that in October last year patients from a minority ethnic background were waiting three weeks longer on average than white patients for a “priority two” operation – which must be done within a month. It also found patients from the most deprived communities were waiting 2.5 weeks longer than those from the least deprived areas. However, Owen Williams, who led the trust when the analysis was carried out, said the analysis, which began early last year, contributed to these disparities being cut significantly over the course of 2021. In May last year the trust’s patients from the most deprived areas were waiting 8.5 weeks longer on average for priority two operations than those from more affluent areas, while patients from minority ethnic groups were waiting 7.8 weeks longer than white patients. Mr Williams said NHS trusts boards must be proactive in undertaking similar analysis to reduce health inequalities. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Guardian, 24 January 2022
  7. News Article
    Women are being forced to wait longer for operations and healthcare appointments in the wake of the pandemic, according to a new report. Research carried out by the Care Quality Commission, England’s regulator of health and social care, found 53% of women experienced longer waiting times for appointments or healthcare procedures during the Covid crisis. The report also found 3 in 10 women experienced appointment cancellations. More women report grappling with these issues than men – with some 44% of men saying they have experienced longer waiting times for appointments or procedures. Helena Mckeown, a GP who previously specialised in women’s health at the British Medical Association (BMA), told The Independent she is not surprised by the findings. "Our world is full of sexism and we know of other examples of sexism and biases in healthcare. Some of them are racial biases. To stop unconscious biases, they need to be recognised and addressed. Ms Mckeown, one of the directors of the Menopause Expert Group, a non-profit which provides education about menopause, said female patients are treated differently to men. She added: “We need to make sure we are not taking women saying they are in pain differently to men saying they are in pain. It is really important that we address this problem of women waiting longer for operations and appointments.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 22 January 2022
  8. News Article
    A “very tense” behind-the-scenes row over how quickly hospitals in England can be expected to reduce the massive backlog of surgery has broken out between NHS bosses and ministers. The dispute has delayed publication of the government’s “elective recovery plan”, which Downing Street had indicated would be part of Boris Johnson’s “Operation Red Meat” political fightback this week. No 10, the Treasury and Department of Health and Social Care are pressing NHS England to ensure that hospitals do as many operations as they can, as quickly as possible, in order to tackle the backlog, which now stands at a record 6 million patients. They want to impose “stretching and demanding” targets on hospitals, sources with knowledge of the discussions said. However, NHS trust bosses say the ongoing impact of treating patients sick with Covid, due to the current Omicron surge, longstanding gaps in their workforce, exhaustion at the frontline and record levels of staff sickness, mean they need time to get back to doing as much surgery as they did before the pandemic. The Treasury is said to be frustrated with NHS England and privately believes it is “foot-dragging” over the targets. NHS bosses for their part fear the plan is being driven by “political expediency”, given the growing concern at the sheer number of people facing long delays for care. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 January 2022
  9. News Article
    NHS dentistry is "hanging by a thread" with some patients facing two-year waits for check-ups, the British Dental Association has said. Department of Health data analysed by the BBC shows almost 1,000 dentists working in 2,500 roles across England and Wales left the NHS last year. One woman told how she had been in pain for more than a year while waiting to have root canal surgery. NHS England said patients who most needed care should be prioritised. Pamela Carr, 58, from Carlisle, has been looking for an NHS dentist to fix her root canal since November 2020. "I've become used to the pain," she said. "I can't afford the private care, and I've tried every practice within 30 miles. I phoned NHS England too." "They said there's nothing they can do because there are no NHS dentists. That was the end of the conversation." Clinical Commissioning Group North Cumbria, which covers the area, lost 4% of its dentists in the last year. The worst-affected area was NHS Portsmouth CCG, which lost 26% of its NHS dentists over 12 months. At least 10% of NHS dentists were lost in 28 other English CCGs. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 January 2022
  10. News Article
    Just under 6 million people in England are now waiting for hospital treatment – a record high – as latest performance figures show how the NHS was struggling even before the Omicron Covid variant emerged. A total of 5,995,156 patients were on the waiting list for an operation in November, of whom more than 2 million had already waited longer than the maximum standard of 18 weeks for routine treatment. Figures published by the NHS underlined its growing inability to provide timely care. They also showed that more than 300,000 people have been waiting more than a year for surgery and that performance against the crucial four-hour A&E target is the worst ever. The figures led to warnings from the Health Foundation thinktank that the NHS was “being stretched to its limits” and from the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Daisy Cooper that “patients are being catastrophically let down by this government’s woeful neglect of the NHS”. “With the NHS now in the thick of one of the most uniquely challenging periods in its history, unacceptably long waits for hospital care are becoming increasingly commonplace,” said Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the King’s Fund. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 13 January 2022
  11. News Article
    A manifesto pledge to hire 26,000 extra health professionals to work in GP surgeries is set to be broken by the government, health leaders have warned, leaving family doctors straining under a heavier workload. About 9,500 of the promised physiotherapists, pharmacists, mental health therapists and other clinical staff so far have been recruited to help GPs and practice nurses. Senior doctors have warned that patients will pay the price for the slow delivery of extra personnel by facing persistently long waits for an appointment. The plan was to free up family doctors’ time by having physiotherapists see patients with sore backs, pharmacists undertaking medication reviews, counsellors supporting people with mental health problems and dieticians advising those with food-related problems. Those 26,000 staff, alongside the arrival of “6,000 more doctors in general practice” in a separate pledge, would help GPs and their teams offer 50m more consultations, the Conservatives said. But in November the health secretary, Sajid Javid, admitted that Johnson’s often-repeated 6,000 extra GPs pledge would be missed. “Whilst progress in meeting this target is better than the GP [recruitment] target, it’s still slow and very concerning that this could be another promise that won’t be met,” said Prof Matin Marshall, the chair of the RCGP. “The impact of not having enough staff in general practice is being felt acutely both by GPs and our team members who are working to their limits, and our patients, who are facing longer waits for the care they need. Meeting this [extra staff] target – and the GP target – will be vital to addressing this.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 January 2022
  12. News Article
    A long-term plan to fix the staffing crisis in the NHS is needed to cut record waiting lists for treatment, the government is being warned. Currently, nearly six million people in England are waiting for routine operations and procedures - many of whom are in pain. A report from MPs says the government needs to address staff shortages - or NHS workers will quit. There have been repeated warnings over the length of hospital waiting lists in England. As of September 2021, a record 5.8 million patients were waiting for surgery - such as hip or knee replacements - with 300,000 waiting more than a year compared with just 1,600 before the pandemic. In the autumn Budget, the government announced an extra £5.9bn for the NHS in England to help clear the backlog. This was on top of another funding package in September to create an extra nine million checks, scans and operations. But in its report published today, the Commons health and social care select committee said the health service was hugely understaffed and was facing an "unquantifiable challenge" in tackling the backlog. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary who now chairs the committee, said the NHS was short of 93,000 workers and there was "no sign of any plan to address this". He described the staffing crisis as "entirely predictable", adding: "The current wave of Omicron is exacerbating the problem, but we already had a serious staffing crisis, with a burnt-out workforce." "Far from tackling the backlog, the NHS will be able to deliver little more than day-to-day firefighting unless the government wakes up to the scale of the staffing crisis facing the NHS." Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 January 2022
  13. News Article
    Ambulance trusts have begun asking patients with heart attacks and strokes to get a lift to hospital with family or friends instead of waiting for an ambulance, because of high covid absences and ‘unprecedented’ surges in demand, HSJ has learned. An internal note at North East Ambulance Service Foundation Trust said that where there was likely to be a risk from the delay in an ambulance reaching a patient, call handlers should “consider asking the patient to be transported by friends or family”. This applies to calls including category two, which covers suspected strokes and heart attacks, according to the note seen by HSJ. It said call handlers should “consider all forms of alternative transport” for patients. The note from medical director Mathew Beattie gives the example of a person with chest pain who would normally get a category 2 response – with a target of reaching them within 18 minutes – but where the ambulance response time would be two hours. In the message to staff, Dr Mathew Beattie said: “To manage [current] unprecedented demand, we have no other option than to try and work differently which I am aware will not sit comfortably but is absolutely essential if we are to sustain a service to those who need it most." “We need to weigh up the risk of delays for ambulances against alternative disposition or transport options. Where such risks are considered, I want you to be aware that the trust will fully support you in your decision-making under these circumstances.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 January 2022
  14. News Article
    NHS England has set out 10 priorities for 2022-23 in its annual planning guidance. NHSE chief executive Amanda Pritchard makes clear in an introduction that many of its goals remain contingent on covid, stating: ”The objectives set out in this document are based on a scenario where covid-19 returns to a low level and we are able to make significant progress in the first part of next year.” The 10 priorities are: Workforce investment, including “strengthening the compassionate and inclusive culture needed to deliver outstanding care”. Responding to COVID-19. Delivering “significantly more elective care to tackle the elective backlog”. Improving “the responsiveness of urgent and emergency care and community care capacity.” Increasing timely access to primary care, “maximising the impact of the investment in primary medical care and primary care networks”. Maintaining “continued growth in mental health investment to transform and expand community health services and improve access”. Using data and analytics to “redesign care pathways and measure outcomes with a focus on improving access and health equity for underserved communities”. Achieving “a core level of digitisation in every service across systems”. Returning to and better “prepandemic levels of productivity”. Establishing integrated care boards and collaborative system working, and “working together with local authorities and other partners across their ICS to develop a five-year strategic plan for their system and places”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 24 December 2021
  15. News Article
    Swift action is needed from the Scottish Government to prevent a “cancer catastrophe”, campaigners have claimed, as new figures showed the NHS has again failed to meet a key waiting times standard. Ministers have set the target of having 95% of patients begin treatment within 62 days of being referred for help because cancer is suspected. But the latest data showed another decline in performance against this in the period July to September, with only 83.1% beginning treatment in this timeframe – down from 84.1% in the previous quarter and below the 87.3% that was achieved in July to September last year. None of Scotland’s health boards met the goal of starting to treat patients within two months of referral – and nor was this target achieved for any cancer types. The latest figures from Public Health Scotland showed that in NHS Orkney, only two out of five (40%) of patients referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer began treatment within two months, the lowest rate in Scotland. And less than three quarters (71.8%) of those suspected of having bowel cancer began treatment within two days, compared to 76 per cent of those with cervical cancer, 91.5% of those with lung cancer and 92.7% of those with breast cancer. It comes as the number of people being referred to help increased by almost a third from the same time last year. Read full story Source: The Scotsman, 14 December 2021
  16. News Article
    Pregnant women say they are queuing for hours at busy vaccination centres for a booster jab, despite being at greater risk from Covid-19 if seriously ill. All adults in England, Scotland and Wales have been offered a booster by the end of 2021. Pregnant women have not been prioritised, but doctors say they should be first in line to protect them and their babies against Omicron. The NHS is urging people to book a jab appointment to avoid waiting in queues. And the UK's vaccine advisory committee, the JCVI, said women who were pregnant and already had two vaccine doses were included in the accelerated booster programme. However, the charity Pregnant Then Screwed said thousands of pregnant women had "encountered unnecessary barriers" which had "left many without the protection they need". Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 December 2021
  17. News Article
    Hundreds of Britons faced many hours-long queues to receive their coronavirus booster jab in a day of chaos that saw lateral flow tests run out on the government website and the NHS site struggle with the surge in booster bookings. It comes as Boris Johnson opened the booster jab programme to all adults in a bid to offer the third dose to all over-18s by the end of December, bringing his original target forward by one month. St Thomas’ Vaccination Centre in Westminister confirmed a wait time of six hours for a booster jab, The Independent was told, with queues snaking around the building. The hospital trust warned the public of a “high demand” for walk-in appointments causing extended waiting times. Operations manager Ria Burke, 25, who had been waiting in the queue for 20 minutes, said: “It’s the first day my age group is allowed to get jabbed and I live locally. “I’d like to not endanger my family at Christmas. This is my third jab. I watched the prime minister’s announcement last night and it was a good sign post but I think like a lot of other people I was just waiting for the portal to open.” At Essentials Pharmacy in Covent Garden, Grace Whiley, 26, had been waiting in the queue for an hour and a half. She said: “It was a last-minute decision, I work round the corner and my age group can’t book til Wednesday. I just want to get it done. I’m pregnant so I want to be as protected as possible.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 13 December 2021
  18. News Article
    Nearly 2,000 children and teenagers have been left waiting for specialist mental health care for at least a year in Scotland, according to official figures branded “damning” by psychiatrists. New NHS Scotland data has revealed that, at the end of September, there were 1,978 patients who had been waiting 52 weeks or more for a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) appointment. That is more than double the 959 young people who were waiting that long the previous September – despite efforts by Nicola Sturgeon’s government to meet its own 2023 target for 90% of young people to receive help within 18 weeks. Ahead of the Holyrood Budget on Thursday, the figures prompted calls from service providers for a “radical transformation of our mental health services” enacted with the same zeal as the response to the coronavirus pandemic and with a focus on earlier interventions to prevent young people “giving up on their futures”. According to the latest figures, there were a total of 11,816 young people waiting for an appointment by the end of September – just 78% of them who had been seen within 18 weeks. Dr Helen Smith, chair of the CAMHS faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, said the long waits for help highlighted the “many problems” with these services “across the length and breadth of the country”. “The fact that our vulnerable children and young people are still waiting to be seen is, frankly, not good enough,” Dr Smith said. “We need them to be able to access the right support at the right time, from the correct services.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 December 2021
  19. News Article
    UK hospitals have cancelled at least 13,000 operations over the last two months as they struggle to cope with record demand for NHS care and people sick with Covid-19. Figures collected by A&E doctors showed that 13,061 planned surgeries had to be called off during October and November because of shortages of beds and staff. However, the cancellations occurred at just 40 of the several hundred NHS hospitals across the four home nations, so those 13,061 are likely to be a major underestimate of the scale of the problem. Dr Adrian Boyle, a vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), which published the data, said the cancellations represented “a stark warning for the months ahead”. He also warned that A&E units across the NHS are “verging on crisis” because of their growing inability to provide timely care to the increasing numbers of patients seeking help. “Urgent and emergency care is verging on crisis and it is impacting and derailing elective care, meaning surgery for patients with serious conditions is delayed,” he added. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 December 2021
  20. News Article
    Dentists may never catch up with the backlog of patients waiting for check-ups, a leading dentist has warned. Dr Russell Gidney said around 6,000 of his patients had not been given a routine check-up in the past year because of Covid restrictions. NHS Wales figures show courses of dental treatment dropped by over three quarters in 2020-21. The Welsh government said dental services would get an extra £3m this year to support pandemic recovery. Dr Gidney said fatigue among colleagues and recruitment problems threatened the return of regular appointments. At his practice in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, he said check-ups have not been going ahead because patients who need urgent treatment were prioritised. Dentists are limited in number of patients they treat because of increased safety measures - such as wearing more PPE and cleaning between patients. New operating procedures were announced last week, relaxing the safety measures for patients who show no signs of respiratory illness, such as colds and flu. But Dr Gidney said although new guidelines may increase patient volumes, they will "barely make a dent" into the "unprecedented backlogs". Wales' Health Minister Eluned Morgan said there have been "long-standing issues" with access to dentistry, due to practices experiencing difficulties with recruitment and retention of dentists. She said these issues were "impacting on the provision of NHS dental services". Read full story Source: BBC News, 2 December 2021
  21. News Article
    Social care services across England are “rapidly deteriorating”, with waiting lists soaring and councils struggling with care home closures, social services chiefs have warned. Long-term waiting lists have almost quadrupled and 1.5m hours of necessary home care were not delivered in the three months to November, amid a deepening staffing crisis going into winter. “Red lights are flashing right across our dashboard,” said Stephen Chandler, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), which ran a survey of 85 councils. “Older and disabled people are suffering.” A survey of care workers by the trade union Unison also found that staff shortages meant people were “dying without dignity” and in some cases there were not enough staff to sit with people in their final hours. A third of those surveyed said staffing levels were “dangerously low”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 November 2021
  22. News Article
    Women requiring the surgical removal of mesh implants have said "very little" has happened since a landmark Scottish government announcement in the summer. The pledge means patients can now receive free treatment from specialists in America and England. But campaigners said initial assessments in Glasgow were taking up to two years. The Scottish government said it was working with NHS Specialist Services to improve waiting times. Implant use was stopped in Scotland after hundreds of women were left with painful, life-changing side effects. In July, the Scottish government announced surgery and travel costs to Spire Health Care in Bristol and the Mercy Hospital in Missouri in the United States would be covered. The cost of each procedure is estimated to be £16,000 to £23,000. Marian Kenny, who is waiting on surgery to remove a mesh implant. joined the protest outside the New Victoria Hospital and admitted she felt "deflated" by the lack of progress in recent months. She told BBC Scotland: "For so much of this fight, we have been fighting to get it stopped and this is the only time we have been fighting for ourselves. We don't want to be guinea pigs any more." Health Secretary Humza Yousaf acknowledged the pain, suffering and distress mesh survivors have been through. He said he hoped to finalise contracts with the clinics in Bristol and Missouri "as quickly as we possibly can". Mr Yousaf added: "I would hope to have an update relatively soon. "I know they have been waiting too long and I promise them I don't want them to be waiting any longer than they have to." Read full story Source: BBC News, 24 November 2021
  23. News Article
    Wales' Health Minister has rejected a suggestion that the NHS is “harming patients” due to the severe levels of pressure on its services. Eluned Morgan MS acknowledged that the speed at which patients were receiving treatment was being impacted but said she would “not accept for a moment” that the NHS was harming its patients. ITV Cymru Wales has spoken to a number of NHS staff and health sector bodies and heard concerns over the sustainability of the health service in its present form. Ms Morgan said: “I don’t think the NHS is harming patients, no. “I think our ability to get to patients quickly, that is perhaps compromised by the pressures that we’re under at the moment but no, I would not accept for a moment that the NHS is harming patients. “I think the situation is that maybe people have to wait a bit longer for care because of the pressures that have grown as a result of the pandemic and let’s be clear about that, that we’re seeing about 20% more people going to their GPs, we’ve got hugely long waiting lists because, of course, we had to be very careful about who was able to go into hospitals during the height of the pandemic. “We’re trying to reign all that back at the same time as dealing with Covid, because that hasn’t finished yet.” Speaking to ITV Cymru Wales for Wales This Week, looking at the challenges facing the NHS, Dr Pete Williams, a consultant in emergency medicine and paediatric medicine at Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, said he felt the current pressures on services were causing harm to patients. He said: “This is not sustainable. We, this department, other departments around the country and the wider NHS, are harming patients because they’re not getting timely care." Read full story Source: ITV News, 22 November 2021
  24. News Article
    People are dying in the back of ambulances and up to 160,000 more a year are coming to harm because they are stuck outside hospitals unable to be offloaded to A&E, a bombshell report has revealed. Patients are also dying soon after finally getting admitted to hospital after spending long periods in the back of an ambulance, while others still in their own homes are not being saved because paramedics are trapped at A&E and unable to answer 999 calls, said the report by NHS ambulance service bosses in England. In addition, about 12,000 of the 160,000 are suffering “severe harm” such as a permanent setback to their health. These include people with life-threatening health emergencies such as chest pains, sepsis, heart problems, epilepsy and COVID-19 because growing numbers of paramedics are having to wait increasingly long times to hand over a patient to A&E staff. Labour and the Liberal Democrats said the “staggering” extent of damage to patients’ health underlined the risks posed by the deepening crisis facing NHS ambulance services. The report, seen by the Guardian, has been drawn up by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and is based on official NHS figures, which until now were secret. AACE represents the chief executives of England’s 10 regional ambulance services, all of which have had to declare an alert in recent months after being faced with unprecedented demands for help. It concludes that: “When very sick patients arrive at hospital and then have to wait an excessive time for handover to emergency department clinicians to receive assessment and definitive care, it is entirely predictable and almost inevitable that some level of harm will arise. “This may take the form of a deteriorating medical or physical condition, or distress and anxiety, potentially affecting the outcome for patients and definitely creating a poor patient experience.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 14 November 2021
  25. News Article
    Family doctors have reopened their bitter dispute with the government by accusing Sajid Javid of misleading MPs and the public by blaming overloaded A&Es on a lack of GP appointments. The Royal College of GPs has told the health secretary in a strongly worded letter that there is no basis for the claim, which he made to MPs last week and which was widely covered by the media. In it Prof Martin Marshall, the college’s chair, said that its 54,000 members “are dismayed and disappointed at the media coverage of your evidence session, which suggested that the lack of face-to-face GP appointments was placing additional strain on accident and emergency departments”. He disputed Javid’s claim that there is evidence which links the issues. He wrote: “You told the [health and social care select] committee you had seen data which showed that more patients were presenting at A&E departments because they were unable to access primary care. I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that this is happening and would welcome sight of any data you have.” Tensions are simmering between GPs and the government since Javid’s edict last month that GPs in England must see any patient who wants an in-person appointment. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 12 November 2021
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