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Found 798 results
  1. News Article
    Almost a third of acute trusts have been identified by NHS England as being ‘at risk’ of missing key targets for electives and cancer recovery, with some facing “periodic calls between ministers and CEOs”, HSJ can reveal. NHS England has identified 39 acute trusts at the most risk of missing the targets of having no patients waiting 78 weeks or more for elective treatment by April 2023, and returning the 62-day cancer waiting list to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. HSJ can reveal the full lists of 19 trusts placed in “tier one” – the most at-risk category – and 20 in “tier two” (see lists below). The “at risk” trusts represent 31% of the acute providers in England, with many of them among the lowest performers in the country for elective and cancer recovery. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 August 2022
  2. News Article
    A 90-year-old woman waited 40 hours for an ambulance after a serious fall. Stephen Syms said his mother, from Cornwall, fell on Sunday evening and an ambulance arrived on Tuesday afternoon. She was then in the vehicle for 20 hours at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. It comes as an ambulance trust warns lives are at risk because of delays in patient handovers. It was also reported a man, 87, who fell, was left under a makeshift shelter waiting for an ambulance. South Western Ambulance Service said it was "sorry and upset" at the woman's wait for an ambulance. Mr Syms, from St Stephen, told BBC Radio Cornwall: "We are literally heartbroken to see a 90-year-old woman in such distress, waiting and not knowing if she had broken anything. "The system is totally broken." He said it took nine minutes before his 999 call was answered. "If that was a cardiac arrest, nine minutes is much too long, it's the end of somebody's life," he said. Mr Syms said paramedics were "absolutely incredible people". He added: "The system is not deteriorating, it's totally broken and needs to be urgently reviewed." Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 August 2022
  3. News Article
    All patients should be able to choose the hospital with the shortest waiting times, a former health secretary has said. Alan Milburn, the Labour health secretary under Tony Blair from 1999 to 2003, called for urgent reforms and warned that the NHS was “close to breaking point” and “in the worst state I have ever seen”. A record 6.7 million people are now on waiting lists, with the numbers waiting in Accident and Emergency departments for at least 12 hours surging by more than a third in a month. Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Milburn called for urgent reforms to give patients more choice and control while preventing a “tsunami” of chronic diseases fuelled by unhealthy lifestyles. In recent months, ministers have promised that those facing the longest waits will be offered treatment further away and offered travel and accommodation costs, but only around 140 patients were booked in for such surgery by June. Mr Milburn called for the option to be offered to all patients, urging health officials to use the NHS app as a way for people to chose the hospital with the shortest wait. So far, officials have promised to ensure that the app allows patients to check the average waiting time at their local hospital for their condition and compare it with others. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 17 August 2022
  4. News Article
    The Irish health services did “relatively well” during Covid-19 but, as in other countries, the pandemic unmasked existing problems, a renowned patient safety expert has said. Peter Lachman of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), was one of nine international experts who consulted on a new World Health Organization (WHO) report on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for patient safety. Dr Lachman said the impact is only starting to be understood. “Ireland did very well early on [in the pandemic], then opened up over Christmas [2020] which led to our numbers going sky-high, then we clamped down again,” he said. "We did well on some things and not so well on others. We have done relatively well when compared with other countries." “Covid-19 was an event which around the world unmasked problems which were there already rather than creating them necessarily,” he said. “The findings start with safety problems — we’ve had safety problems in Ireland but things are getting better. There is a good strategy coming on. I’ve worked with hospitals around the country on this. It’s no worse than other countries.” Read full story Source: The Irish Examiner, 12 August 2022
  5. News Article
    Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) officials are concerned that many more people are dying than expected in recent months – particularly older working-age people – with NHS care delays and interruptions a likely cause. HSJ understands there is concern and analysis under way across the chief medical officer’s team and in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. The DHSC told HSJ initial work showed the biggest causes of the “excess deaths” were cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and strokes) and diabetes. This supports the case they are being caused by a combination of the current very long delays for ambulances and other emergency care, and by people with heart disease and diabetes missing out on routine checks due to Covid and its knock-on effects, HSJ was told. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 17 August 2022
  6. News Article
    Last month saw the highest number of ambulance callouts for life-threatening conditions since records began, NHS England officials say. There were more than 85,000 category one calls, for situations like cardiac arrests and people stopping breathing. The heatwave could have been one reason for increased demand, but experts say hospitals already face immense pressures. Nearly 30,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital. The number is up 33% on the previous month and the highest since records began in 2010. Richard Murray, chief executive of The King's Fund said the pressure on hospitals was also being felt right across the health and social care system. He added: "At the end of July, 13,014 people were still in hospital beds despite being medically fit to be discharged, often due to a lack of available social care support. The challenges affecting the NHS cannot be solved without addressing the issues in social care." Read full story Source BBC News, 12 August 2022
  7. News Article
    A woman with fast-growing stage-four breast cancer says the NHS has let her down, with delays at every stage of her treatment. Caroline Boulton, 56, had several appointments for a mammogram, which checks for early signs of cancer, cancelled because of Covid, in March and November 2020. In late 2021, she found a small lump, went to her GP and was referred urgently to a specialist - but then the delays began. "They haven't moved quickly enough," Ms Boulton says, who lives in Greater Manchester. "It's been really, really slow." "Between each appointment, each scan, there's been four-, five-, six-, seven-, eight-week waiting times and delays every time." The referral letter came through "very quickly" but then she waited three weeks, instead of the recommended two, to see a consultant. "When I first found the lump, it was only pea-sized," Ms Boulton says. "By the time I got to see the consultant, it was the size of a tangerine." Her cancer was growing quickly, she was told, but it would be eight weeks before a mastectomy could be scheduled to remove her breast. "Considering it was fast-growing, that's a huge concern - you're living with that, waiting, knowing it's growing," Ms Boulton says. When she finally saw an oncologist seven months after finding the lump, had another scan and received the results, the cancer had spread to her liver - and there was no longer any treatment they could offer. "I've now got stage-four cancer that I shouldn't have - and two years to live." Read full story Source: BBC News, 10 August 2022
  8. News Article
    Patients at trusts with long waiting lists should no longer think ‘they have to go to their local hospital’ for outpatient appointments, but should instead be offered virtual consultations elsewhere in the country where there is greater capacity, Sir Jim Mackey has told HSJ. The NHS England elective chief said recent efforts to abolish two-year waiters by July had meant a “very big” surgical focus. However, the next phase of the elective recovery plan would see a major shift of emphasis onto reducing the wait for outpatient appointments. Sir Jim said: “Providers have been split into tiers again with tier one having national oversight and tier two, regional oversight. Behind that we will be pairing up organisations so that organisations with capacity can help those with the biggest challenges from a virtual outpatient perspective. He added: “There still is a lot to work through [on virtual outpatients], we’re going to be testing the concept… We need to work through how all the wiring and plumbing needs to work. For example, what happens if the patient needs a diagnostic locally, having seen a clinician virtually in another part of the country? “It would be great also to try and stimulate more of a consumer drive on this – encouraging patients to ask about virtual outpatients when the waits locally may be too long, so they don’t just think they have to go to their local hospital. I think this could really help shift the model if we can get it right.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 9 August 2022
  9. News Article
    NHS patients will wait longer for routine checks as part of a national drive to clear record backlogs. Health officials have instructed hospitals to “repurpose” resources to focus on those waiting the longest, who are yet to have their first appointment. Today the NHS claimed it had “virtually eliminated” two year waits, with less than 3,000 people enduring such delays, down from 22,500 at the end of January. Hospitals are being urged to prioritise those waiting 18 months or more, with pledges to get rid of such waits by April next year. NHS chiefs have instructed hospitals to focus on outpatient first appointments, rather than patients who have already had treatment, and are waiting for follow-up checks. Senior officials have said many such appointments are a “a waste of time” saying there should be more use of systems where routine slots are scrapped, and patients instead told to contact their medical team if they have particular concerns. The drive - which health chiefs dubbed “Super September” - will see priority given to tackling the longest waits. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 9 August 2022
  10. News Article
    The backlog of people waiting more than two years for a routine operation in England has shrunk from 22,500 at the start of the year to fewer than 200. NHS England figures show the number of patients waiting that length of time has fallen to just 168, excluding more complex cases. Staff have been praised for carrying out the NHS elective recovery plan, published this year to tackle backlogs built up during the coronavirus pandemic. At the start of the year, more than 22,500 people had been waiting two years or longer for scans, checks and surgery. A further 51,000 who would have passed the two-year mark by the end of July have also been treated, figures show. The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, said: “It has only been possible because the NHS has continued to reform the way we deliver care, using innovative techniques and adopting pioneering technology like robot surgery, and through building new relationships and mutual aid arrangements across systems to offer patients the opportunity to be transferred elsewhere and get the care they need as quickly as possible. “The next phase will focus on patients waiting longer than 18 months, building on the fantastic work already done, and, while it is a significant challenge, our remarkable staff have shown that, when we are given the tools and resources we need, the NHS delivers for our patients.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 9 August 2022
  11. News Article
    The number of patients unable to get a hospital appointment after being referred by their GP is up more than 50% in two years amid the record NHS backlog, official data show. NHS Digital figures show no appointments were immediately available for 2.3 million referrals made in the first six months of this year – up 51% on the same period in 2020. Appointment slot issues occur when a patient is referred by their GP through the NHS e-Referral Service but no appointment is available to book. The referral is then forwarded or deferred to a patient’s chosen provider, but if an appointment is not made within 180 days it will automatically be removed from the system, according to NHS Digital. Patient safety campaigners have said the scale of the problem must be “urgently investigated” by NHS England to ensure the safety of patients is not being compromised while they wait for appointments. Helen Hughes, the chief executive of the Patient Safety Learning charity, said: “We have significant concerns about the safety of patients who are facing increasingly long waits for treatment, particularly those on high priority cancer pathways and urgent referrals.” She said patients needed to be assured that they will “not be lost in a failing, complex system”, adding: “We believe that NHS England needs to urgently investigate, quantify the scale of the problem and take action if we are to prevent these capacity and system issues resulting in avoidable harm for patients.” Some GPs told Patient Safety Learning they had experienced difficulties getting referrals accepted. One GP, based in the North East, said: “There is an ever-creeping transfer of management of complex conditions from secondary to primary care, without adequate training or resources to manage this safely.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 7 August 2022 You may also be interested in Patient Safety Learning's blog: Rejected outpatient referrals are putting patients at risk and increasing workload pressure on GPs
  12. News Article
    After lockdown raided the savings of hairdresser and gym instructor Lucie Wilby, a lengthy wait for a hip replacement dealt another blow to her family’s finances. “We’re in a lot of debt because of it and that’s a combination of Covid and obviously surgery [and] waiting times,” the 53-year-old mother from Cornwall says. “If I hadn’t had to wait six months, we’d be nowhere near this issue.” Like many of the 6.6 million people on an NHS waiting list, work had become painful and eventually impossible for Wilby as the backlog in treatment forces people to cut their hours or stop employment altogether. “By the time of the operation, I was barely walking and I’m self employed,” she says. “It took about three years to get diagnosed. That’s one of the major problems – it’s not just the waiting time for the operation once you’re on the list, it’s the waiting time for diagnosis.” While tax cuts and even trans issues may have stolen the limelight in the Tory leadership race, the struggle to get a grip of record NHS backlogs post-Covid is having a huge economic, as well as human, cost. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 7 August 2022
  13. News Article
    Armed police are being sent to save the lives of people in cardiac arrest because ambulances “can’t cope” with demand, The Independent has revealed. Officers are spending up to a third of their time on non-policing matters, a watchdog has warned, including responding to mental health crises and transporting patients to A&E as ambulance services face a “chronic crisis situation”. Andy Cooke, HM chief inspector of constabulary, said that firearms officers have been responding to pleas from struggling NHS colleagues to respond to cardiac arrests. He told The Independent that police are becoming the “first, last and only resort” as NHS services buckle under strain, taking them away from tackling crime at a time when recorded offences are at a record high in England and Wales. Mr Cooke, the former chief constable of Merseyside Police, added: “Recently, officers in armed response vehicles (ARVs) were being sent to reports of people who were having cardiac arrests because the ambulance service couldn’t cope with the demand, because they’re trained in first aid and to use defibrillators." “The ambulance service contacted the police to say ‘we’ve got this heart patient and we haven’t got anyone to send’." “Being first, last and only resort, the police will go. It’s right that they did go but that hides the problems we’ve got in the rest of the system.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 8 August 2022
  14. News Article
    Nine in 10 NHS dental practices across the UK are not accepting new adult patients for treatment under the health service, a BBC investigation has found. BBC's research shows no dentists taking on adult NHS patients could be found in a third of the UK's top-tier councils. And eight in 10 NHS practices are not taking on children. The Department of Health said it had made an extra £50m available "to help bust the Covid backlogs" and that improving NHS access was a priority. BBC News contacted nearly 7,000 NHS practices - believed to be almost all those offering general treatment to the public. The British Dental Association (BDA) called it "the most comprehensive and granular assessment of patient access in the history of the service". While NHS dental treatment is not free for most adults, it is subsidised. The BBC heard from people across the UK who could not afford private fees and said the subsidised rates were crucial to getting care. The lack of NHS appointments has led people to drive hundreds of miles in search of treatment, pull out their own teeth without anaesthesia, resort to making their own improvised dentures and restrict their long-term diets to little more than soup. Read full story Source: BBC News, 8 August 2022
  15. News Article
    Ministers have admitted a key NHS pledge to ensure that everyone who has been waiting at least two years for hospital care would be treated by last month has not been met. The then health secretary Sajid Javid made the promise in February when launching the NHS’s “elective recovery plan”. It was intended to tackle what is now a record 6.6 million-patient backlog in England for those awaiting a procedure such as a joint replacement or cataract removal and included a series of treatment milestones the health service had to hit. “No one will wait longer than two years by July,” Javid said. However, the Department of Health and Social Care has now admitted that it will miss that target and that “a small number of patients” will have remained untreated by that deadline. The health minister Maria Caulfield told Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, in a written parliamentary answer on 18 July that while “no formal estimate has been made … engagement with the National Health Service suggests a small number of patients with complex cases will have waited longer than two years for NHS treatment by the end of July 2022”. Streeting said the admission was a further example of the government not backing up rhetoric on the NHS with concrete action. “It is unacceptable for anyone to be left waiting more than one year for healthcare, let alone two,” he said. “Once again the Conservatives have overpromised, [and] undelivered, and patients are paying the price.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 3 August 2022
  16. News Article
    A&E waits are now “apocalyptic” and “worse than ever imagined” leaked NHS data shows, and could be driving 1,000 patient deaths a month, The Independent can reveal. Almost 700,000 people have waited more than 12 hours in A&E in the first seven months of 2022, according to leaked NHS data. The “hidden” monthly trolley waits, not published in national data, have more than doubled this year in comparison to 2019. Dr Katherine Henderson, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, warned data shows trolley waits are “worse than ever imagined” and said it is “scandalous” the real figures are not published despite promises. Dr Henderson warned the deterioration in A&E waiting times is the result of “decades of underfunding” and “unheeded warnings” over staffing and social care. In one message to staff in Nottinghamshire, seen by The Independent, hospital leaders said last week patients were waiting more than 40 hours for beds in A&E, while some areas of the hospital were running on a 1:14 staffing ratios and patients were waiting at home with no care. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 August 2022
  17. News Article
    A cancer sufferer who says she faced a wait of 31 hours in A&E has compared the emergency department to "a cattle market". Tracy Summerson, who had nausea and a fever, was eventually admitted to Lincoln County Hospital last week. Ms Summerson said there were more than 30 other patients who waited a similar amount of time. The hospital said despite long waits, those who needed immediate care were "able to be seen and looked after". Ms Summerson, from Scopwick near Metheringham, described the scene as "just crammed, you were like cattle in a market". Ms Summerson, who has stage four malignant melanoma, said: "There was people coming with sick bowls being sick next to you. "When you are immune-suppressed you're supposed to go in a side room out of germs way, but they needed all the rooms for consultations." The family of an 83-year-old woman also contacted the BBC to say she waited more than 40 hours in a wheelchair in her nightdress after being taken to the hospital with a suspected brain bleed. The trust added: "We continue to see an increasing demand on our urgent and emergency care services coupled with patients staying much longer in our hospitals than previously experienced." Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 August 2022
  18. News Article
    Several trusts have now started reporting thousands of 12-hour waits in their emergency departments, representing a huge difference to the numbers published nationally under a slightly different measure. This year, trusts have started submitting data to NHS England on the number of patients waiting over 12 hours from time of arrival in ED, until discharge, admission or transfer. Many trusts are now reporting these statistics in their public board reports. This is a slightly different measure to the publicly reported “trolley wait” figures, which count waits of over 12 hours from decision to admit until admission. Experts have long argued the trolley wait measure does not capture the true problem of ED overcrowding and delayed care. The new data captures a far higher number of patients and has not been published nationally by NHSE. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 2 August 2022
  19. News Article
    More than a million people – including hundreds of thousands of children – are on an unpublished national waiting list for community health services, according to NHS England documents leaked to HSJ. They reveal that just over 75,000 children are waiting to access community paediatric services, including children needing help with developmental delay, long-term health conditions and additional needs; and there is a backlog of more than 74,300 young people for speech and language therapy. More than 321,000 adults are on the list waiting for musculoskeletal services, mostly physiotherapy such as for back and joint pain; while 120,000 are waiting for podiatry. HSJ understands the lack of national support for long waits for most community and mental health care – in contrast to billions of government funding and a major recovery programme for elective consultant-led treatment – has been raised at a senior level in NHS E in recent weeks. One senior leader told HSJ the discrepancy was “immoral”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 August 2022
  20. News Article
    A call to NHS 111 was abandoned every 10 seconds between 2020 and 2021, figures show. Millions of callers to the helpline hung up at a time when demand for the NHS was at its highest. In 2020, 2,490,663 calls were abandoned, while in 2021 this figure increased to 3,531,186. And 1,174,159 gave up on the line from January to May this year. Callers in Devon take an average of 11 minutes to get through to the NHS 111 service, according to Liberal Democrat research. Daisy Cooper, Lib Dem spokeswoman for health and social care, said: "Ambulance services are being stretched to breaking point, hospitals are reaching full capacity and now people cannot get through to NHS 111. We have called on this government time and time again to get a grip on this issue by recruiting more NHS 111 call handlers now." "The longer they delay, the longer they are leaving people in pain and distress." Helen Hughes, of the Patient Safety Learning charity, said: "These figures represent a serious safety concern. Each call is a potential missed opportunity for patients to receive timely medical advice that may prevent future harm." "With the ongoing severe pressures faced by ambulance services and hospitals this summer, patients are increasingly being signposted to NHS 111 for advice on non-life threatening conditions." "However, it can only relieve the pressure on other areas of the health service if NHS 111 has the capacity and resources to meet rising demand. The NHS leadership needs to urgently assess the reasons for this high number of abandoned calls." Read full story Source: Express, 31 July 2022
  21. News Article
    The NHS’s only gender identity clinic for children has been found to be neither “safe nor viable” and is set to be replaced by regional hubs. A damning report into gender identity services run by the Tavistock and Portman Foundation Trust has found that the model is putting children at “considerable risk”. An interim report by Dr Hilary Cass said that children and young people are being subjected to “lengthy” waits for access to gender dysphoria services, and are not receiving support during this time. The report said a “fundamentally different” service model that can provide timely and appropriate care for children is needed, and recommended that the NHS launch local specialist centres. Her full report is due to be published next year, but has so far warned that the long waiting lists for gender-questioning children and young people are “unacceptable”. The review said it was not yet able to provide recommendations on the use of puberty blockers and feminising or masculinising hormones, due to gaps in the evidence. A report from safety watchdog the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch in April warned that CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services) had been forced to “hold the risk” while caring for children who are waiting to access specialist gender-dysphoria (GID) services. It added: “There is a lack of capacity and capability to ensure proactive risk assessment of the health of patients waiting on the GIDS waiting list.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 28 July 2022
  22. News Article
    One of the NHS’s biggest hospital trusts has declared its cancer waiting list is now at an ‘unmanageable size’. Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust leaders set out the stark judgement in a paper for its July board meeting, held last week. The report said: “The 62-day [referral to treatment backlog as of 3 July] has increased for the second consecutive week to 1,055. “[The cancer patient tracking list] is getting bigger and has reached an unmanageable size. Referral rates have plateaued from March 2021 [but] treatment rates have not increased in line with PTL growth. “This points to a noisy PTL, where the hospital is extremely busy managing patients who do not have cancer.” The paper also said NHS England had recognised the trust’s 62-day cancer target needed to be delivered “in more realistic and achievable stages”. It highlighted particular concerns around a “serious” demand and capacity problem in its dermatology department which contributed to almost half of its 62-day backlog. The trust had 445 62-day RTT cancer breaches in dermatology alone in May, the latest data reported. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 July 2022
  23. News Article
    Care waiting lists for children are rising at double the rate of the adult backlog, a top doctor has warned. The waiting list for children’s care, including surgeries, hit 360,000 in May, the latest NHS data shows, and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) warned it is set to get worse amid worsening summer pressures. In an exclusive interview with The Independent, Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of RCPCH, said children’s services hadn’t been adequately prioritised since taking a hit during the pandemic, which was compounded by an “extremely busy summer”. She said children’s services now faced a “perfect storm” as they struggled to meet demand due to the increased pressure of viruses not previously seen at high levels during summer, and staff being off sick with Covid. Dr Kingdon said: “I don’t think it’s a surprise at all, that the waiting lists are rising. I think the truth is that the rate of rise of the waiting list for children is more than double the rate of rise for adults.” An NHS spokesperson said: “It is right that hospitals have been prioritising patients with the most urgent clinical need. The number of people waiting the longest – which includes many children – has dropped by more than 80 per cent since January.” But Dr Kingdon warned the official waiting list data, published by NHS England, was a “gross underestimation” of the actual number of children waiting for care overall. She said: “We’re not even collecting the data adequately to be able to truly understand the extent of the problem.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 21 July 2022
  24. News Article
    Long NHS waiting times appear to be pushing people into paying thousands of pounds for private treatment. There were 69,000 self-funded treatments in the UK in the final three months of last year - a 39% rise on the same period before the pandemic. Experts said it was a sign of how desperate people had become. The BBC has seen evidence of people taking out loans and resorting to crowdfunding to pay for private treatment. The figures from the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) do not include those who have private insurance - instead they are the people paying the full cost of treatment themselves, leaving them liable for huge bills. Patient groups warned there was a risk of a two-tier system being created, with the poorest losing out because they were the least likely to be able to afford to pay for treatment. Patient watchdog Healthwatch England said waits for treatment were one of the most common concerns flagged by patients, and warned the situation risked "widening health inequalities". Chief executive Louise Ansari said for most people going private "simply isn't an option", especially with the cost-of-living crisis. "People on the lowest incomes are the most likely to wait the longest for NHS treatment. This leads to a worse impact on their physical health, mental health and ability to work and care for loved ones." Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 July 2022
  25. News Article
    Doctors’ leaders have reacted with incredulity to demands that all hospitals in England take “immediate steps” to find extra space for patients so that no ambulance waits longer than 30 minutes. A letter from NHS England sent to the heads of NHS trusts, integrated care boards, and ambulance trusts acknowledged that this will not be easy “and that it may place additional burden on staff at an already challenging time. The letter was sent on 15 July, in response to the increased pressure on ambulance services over the past year and in light of the current heatwave. It said, “All systems that are currently unable to offload ambulances within 30 minutes should now take further steps to create capacity within acute hospitals to ensure the rapid release of vehicles. This will require risk based decisions to be made about both the use of estate and deployment of clinical workforce.” Vishal Sharma, chair of the consultants committee at the BMA, said, “The government should be ashamed that it has come to this. If hospitals had the space or the staff to allow them to care for these patients, they wouldn’t be waiting in ambulances at the hospital door in the first place. The sad fact is that after decades of underinvestment, our hospitals are under-resourced, under-bedded, and understaffed.” Read full story Source: BMJ, 18 July 2022
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